Boonsboro’s Forgotten Railway

During the early 1890s, trolley fever had gripped the country.

A combination of different economic changes were forming the perfect situation for the growth of the new industry.  The United States was coming out of a recession and looking for economic growth, railroads were growing at a rapid pace and bringing with them great prosperity, and at the same time the wagon roads and canals which had once been the center of commerce were in a rapid state of decline.  In 1888, a man named Frank Sprague built the first successful electric trolley network in the streets of Richmond, Virginia.  What Sprague’s project demonstrated was not just that his business model was reliable, but also that these lightweight, self propelled vehicles were lower maintenance and could climb hills far easily than traditional railroads.

Little is known about the first foray into trolley service to Boonsboro.  A single scrap of letterhead on display at the Boonsboro Trolley Station Museum and a few brief and enigmatic newspaper mentions discovered in scans are all we have uncovered about the South Mountain Railway and Electric Light Company of Boonsboro.

The September 1897 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, a reliable source of structure locations from the past, indicates that walls were constructed for a power generating plant on the site of the trolley station, but that it had already been abandoned unfinished by that time.  The next map date in 1904 shows nothing remaining of the structure.

The purpose for this original company is a bit of a mystery. Of course, the addition of “Electric Light” in the name implied a desire to be the electricity provider for the Town of Boonsboro, another growing industry at the time.

On the railway end of the business, grading work had begun, though whether it was later expanded or not is unknown, and what we do have is still educated speculation.  It may have been intended to capitalize on the sudden surge of tourism coming to Antietam Battlefield which began around 1890, connecting the National Road at Boonsboro with the battlefield.  There also may have been a freight incentive, connecting Boonsboro directly by rail with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Keedysville.  Whatever the purpose, remnants of this planned trolley route can still be found in the tree line on the north edge of Shafer Park, where the top of the hill was dug into a shallow “cut” and earth fill was added to a steep slope directly adjacent, allowing for a far smoother climb and descent over the hill.

Whatever the purpose, this railway and power company disappeared as quickly as it appeared.  A failed investment which went out of business without running a single train or generating a single volt of power.