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
15th 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.
Click on photo for larger version
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