.  The General Assembly granted a charter to the Willirnantic Traction Co. in June 1901, which had planned to build an interurban line to connect the Thread City with Southbridge, Mass.  However, this project fell through.  It was thought that a southerly line would prove to be more profitable, so a line was built to Baltic to connect there with the Norwich Street Railway Company’s line, and provide an interurban line between Willimantic and Norwich.  But ground was eventually broken for the Willimantic-Baltic line in July, 1902, and the first track was laid the following September. It was built through Dugway Hill to South Windham, and from beyond there a bridge was built at Williams Crossing to take the trolley line over the railroad line at that point. The track traversed the location once occupied by the Franklin mushroom farm, and by Dec. 8 it had reached as far as Bailey’s Ravine, known as Ayer’s Gap. Construction work was then halted because of weather conditions. When work recommenced the following spring, embankment building and blasting was undertaken so the line could traverse the topography in the Ayer’s Gap vicinity. (It had taken the trolley company several months of planning to work through a number of problems and controversies. The trolley line, for example, crossed several roads in Windham and Franklin and so a layout for each crossing had to be approved by the towns’ selectmen. Also, originally, the company was going to use a “river route” for the line but then switched to the “Ayer’s Gap Route”. Another problem occurred in the Dugway Hill area where landowners objected to the road being widened so that the trolley would run on the side of the macadam instead of down the middle. In Willimantic, however, the situation was reversed. Merchants on the south side of Main Street petitioned to have the tracks go down the middle of Main Street instead of the side.  The Willimantic Traction Company estimated that the line to Baltic had cost $12,000 per mile to build and this did not include the compensation paid to landowners for right-of-way permission.  Furthermore, it did not take into account the expense of the company’s powerhouse and car barns, being built at South Windham.  The powerhouse, an electricity substation, was a one-story brick building built on the site of an old gristmill. The car barn, a two-story wood frame building, was located next to Avery’s store. The  car barn’s second story was up and occupied by the trolley company’s officials and employees,  The entire ten mile ling trolley  line from Willimantic to Baltic  was completed in July 1903, and  the first test drive left from the  corner of Quercus Avenue for  Baltic on Aug, 5, 1903.  Willimantic went “trolley crazy” when the line officially  opened on Sunday, Aug. I6 1903.  Between 10:30 aim. and 11 p.m., the company collected almost 4,000 fares. Crowds of people waited in turn, and when each car arrived there was a rush to climb on board.  Each trolley car was designed to hold 84 people, but it was estimated that on average they carried 125 people per trip on that first  day. On one journey, 165 people packed themselves onto at car, filling the running boards and the spaces between the seats. (In the first two weeks of operation. It was said that “the people of the city have given their patronage to the company...On one car in particular, over 15,000 fares have been registered”.) Although the Willimantic Traction Co, built a trolley car bridge over the railroad line at William's Crossing at Lebanon, it was considered too expensive to build a trolley tunnel or bridge to traverse the New York New Haven Railroad grade crossing in Willimantic, so the trolley line could continue westwards up Main Street. Instead, passengers and crew on the cars from Baltic and South Windham stepped off their car and walked across the railroad line, and stepped onto a wailing trolley car that took them up Main Street as far as the terminus at the Willimantic Cemetery.  The car on the west side of the railroad line remained on Main Street overnight and was padlocked until service resumed the following morning.  (Continued next week) Today’s photo shows the trolley parked at the railroad tracks at the end of the trolley line. On the right of the photo, you can see the railroad signalman on the tower where the tracks crossed Union and Jackson Streets.

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