The promise of a May, 1900 ride on the trolley was a promise too good to be true. Friction between Mr. Pettis (who was president of the Willimantic Street Railway Company) and the group which had promised to finance the railway came to a head. Pettis had gone ahead and had made some contracts for material, gotten necessary permissions from the City and had local representatives within the company. What Pettis had not done, though, was to accurately portray the extent of financing.  The financial backers said they would have no more to do with the company until Pettis was out and with that, Pettis was forced to resign. Much maneuvering then went on within the company, the result being that Willimantic Mayor W.D. Grant (already a director of the Company) was elected President of the Company. The new management then repeated what had been said several times before – an expert Civil Engineer was coming to survey the route from South Windham to Baltic and from Willimantic to South Coventry. The survey and plans would be submitted to those who would be the financial backers. If the backers felt there would be a good return on their investments, the road would be built at once. Once again, though, months went by with no signs of progress. (The original charter had been obtained in 1893, renewed in 1895, 1897 and 1899.) Mayor Grant, now the elected President of the Company, began a diligent process of undoing the bad work of Mr. Pettis and by May, things were straightened out enough that financing could be sought. But as September 15^th approached, the day mandated by the Legislature for tracks to be laid, it became more apparent that the mandate would not be met. In fact, the Company officers admitted that an effort to lay any tracks “in the present season” had been abandoned. The deadline came and went, the charter expired and by the end of 1900, seven years after the original charter was issued, plans were being made by William Grant to apply to the incoming Legislature for an “electric street railroad in Willimantic which will also include portions of Windham, Coventry and Lebanon”. In Mr. Grant’s defense it should be noted that even after the charter expired, he diligently sought solid financial backing and then he urged the financial backers to expend money on surveys since he still believed that he could get the road in operation by June (1901) if the charter was approved. At this point, we’ll take a quick look at how Mr. Grants year of 1901 played out. Grant began the year by forming and new company (The Willimantic Traction Company) and then petitioning the Legislature for a new charter. The first step was a hearing in front of the Legislature’s Railroad Committee. Things went well and several prominent citizens expressed their support. At the end of May, the Railroad Committee a it would report favorably on the Traction Company’s petition. In June, 1901, the Legislature approved the charter. In Willimantic, the new company had to “make application to the common council…for the privileges which that body have the power to grant”. It was expected that the contract with the city would be completed by the end of August and even though there would be no trolley in the Fall, at least the work could be started. By late December, 1901, after a myriad of meetings between the Traction Company, elected officials of the City of Willimantic and the Town of Windham and representatives of the State Highway Department, the Company had obtained a “go ahead” for the project. The Company entered into a contract with the Central Vermont Railroad for a bridge over the tracks on the line to South Coventry. A more perplexing problem being worked on was how to get out of the East end of the city since several railroad tracks had to be crossed. Still other problems were now cropping up in South Windham due to demands by the State Highway Commissioner and from some citizens who were concerned that the highway would have to be widened to accommodate the tracks. The Traction Company, however, worked closely with Highway Commissioner MacDonald and agreed to pay for the widening of a short stretch of the highway so that the tracks could run down the middle. The final hurdle for the company was cleared when Willimantic’s leaders (finally!) agreed among themselves as to the location of the tracks in the City. Ground was finally broken in July, 1902. Today’s photo shows the trolley on Main Street in South Windham.

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