The Columbus, Ohio, horsecar era
started in 1863 with a line from the Columbus Union Depot on North
High Street past the new State Capital building at Broad and High Streets to South High at Mound Street , a distance of about one and a half miles. The
beginning of the end for the horse cars came in 1888 with the start of electrification and it
was all over by 1892 with the conversion of the last horsecar line, the Oak Street line, to electrified streetcars.
The horsecar era lasted 29 years.
During that time the Columbus population grew from 18,000 to 90,000.
The horsecars make it possible for Columbus to grow beyond a comfortable
walking distance from the central commercial area located on High Street
giving rise to the streetcar suburbs.
That first 1863 line grew from approximately 1.5 miles to multiple routes encompassing two streetcar companies (The Columbus Consolidated Street Railway Co. and
the Glenwood and Green Lawn Railway Company) with a total of 34.5 miles.
That original High Street line remained the core of the system with most new
routes radiating east or west from High Street. The horsecar lines
established the basic route layout for the electric street railway that followed
in the 1890s.
This section of the web site
gives the reader a view of horse drawn street
railways in Columbus, Ohio, during the last half of the 19th century.
