Trolley

Trolley. Town of Riverdale Park. The Civil War (1861-1865) transformed Washington, DC, from a quiet southern town to a constantly expanding metropolis fueled by a growing federal bureaucracy and the many businesses that benefited from the wealth and markets that the nation's capital produced. Growth -- particularly the demand for affordable housing in an escalating real estate market -- led entrepreneurs to the surrounding countryside, still largely agricultural in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Developers could subdivide land and build affordable houses away from the bustling and expensive city. , , Developers needed to provide prospective house buyers with transportation to their jobs in the city. And so the streetcar was born. Originally powered by horses and then by electric current, these omnibuses ran on steel tracks and stopped at set locations on a timetable, much like railroads, but on a small scale. A few cents bought a rider a trip downtown. The City and Suburban Railway established a station on this property, a concession to the Calvert family in exchange for the rail right-of-way. Streetcar systems, privately developed and operated, although with government backing to acquire the necessary rights-of-way, account for the development of Washington suburbs like Riverdale Park. The widespread adoption of the automobile after World War I (1914-1918) freed residents from the rigid schedules and routes of the streetcars and allowed households to be established farther from the city center. This led to the decline of streetcars, and transformed the once-neat pattern of suburbs to a more dispersed pattern of communities linked by automobiles and an elaborate system of roads.