First decade

On July 29, 1892, the Washington and Great Falls Electric Railway Company received a charter from the U.S. Congress to build a streetcar line from the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., to Cabin John Creek in Maryland's Montgomery County.^[2] The Cabin John terminus was chosen for the "weekend and summer resort for wealthy and well-known Washingtonians" that had grown up around the Washington Aqueduct's Union Arch Bridge since the 1870s.^[3][4]

The streetcar route would run from a passenger station to be constructed in the block bounded by 35th and 36th Streets and M and Prospect Streets NW, just north of the Aqueduct Bridge in Georgetown, "running thence west over the [Chesapeake and Ohio] Canal road on an elevated railway of iron columns and beams",^[5] along the southern side of the Georgetown Reservoir, through the just-conceived neighborhood of The Palisades, and past Chain Bridge. Crossing into Maryland, it would turn northward toward Glen Echo and Cabin John.^[6] The company was authorized to use purchases and eminent domain to acquire the necessary rights-of-way; it would obtain the final parcel in this manner in August 1895.^[6]

Construction began on a single-track line in 1893, including the erection of a 280-foot steel Pratt truss bridge to cross the Foundry Branch stream in Georgetown.^[7][8][9]

Tracks reached the Maryland line on September 28, 1895.^[6] Operations began shortly thereafter, with speeds limited to five miles per hour while running on roads and crossings, and fares capped at 10 cents a ride.^[5] (An amendment of June 3, 1896, would allow the construction of a branch "to a point on the Georgetown and Tenallytown Railway at or near the junction of the Loughboro road with the River road".^[5]) Tracks reached Cabin John in 1897.^[6] "When the line was finished, it was recognized for the scenic views along its route which traveled through neighborhoods and wooded areas interspersed with vistas over the Potomac River. It was also the only streetcar line in the District known to have followed a private right of way for an extensive portion of its route rather than an already established street or road," a 2019 history would report.^[6]

The line's success led the railroad to double-track the route by 1899 and replace seven wooden trestles with steel structures. Rolling stock was housed in the Falls Car Barn, a one-story, six-track wood-frame building completed in 1896 (demolished in 1946) at the line's Georgetown terminus at 38th and Prospect Streets NW.^[6][10]

The Great Streetcar Consolidation

The decade that followed the stock market crash of 1893 saw the consolidation of nearly all of the D.C. and suburban Maryland streetcar companies into two larger corporations. The first of these was the Capital Traction Company, formed by the 1895 merger of the Rock Creek Railway and the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. The second began to take shape from 1896 to 1899, when a consortium of three businessmen purchased controlling interests in a half dozen streetcar companies and a pair of utility companies,^[13] and swept them into a holding company named the Washington Traction and Electric Company. But the consortium had borrowed too heavily and paid too much, and so quickly fell into financial trouble.^[6] To prevent transit disruption, Congress on June 5, 1900, authorized the Washington and Great Falls to acquire the stock of any of the railways and power companies owned by Washington Traction.^[14] After the latter defaulted on its loans on June 1, 1901, the former moved in to take its place.

On February 1, 1902, Washington and Great Falls changed its name to the Washington Railway and Electric Company (WRECo) and reincorporated as a holding company.^[15] Three days later, it exchanged its stock for shares in Washington Traction, one-for-one at a discounted rate.^[16] The company financed the deal by issuing $17.5 million in bonds ($591,900,000 today^[17]) and $15 million in stock.^[14]

The WERCo thereby absorbed:^[14]

• Metropolitan Railroad
• Columbia Railway

It also took control of all of Washington Traction's stock in (and debt owed by) several other companies:^[14]

• City and Suburban Railway
• Brightwood Railway
• Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad
• Georgetown and Tennallytown Railway
• Washington Woodside and Forest Glen Railway
• Washington and Glen Echo Railroad
• Washington and Rockville Railway Company

It would soon take control of Potomac Electric Power Company, whose power plant in D.C. would drive the system's streetcars,^[18] and United States Electric Lighting Company.

Not every company became a part of the WRECo immediately. The City and Suburban Railway^[19] and the Georgetown and Tennallytown Railroad operated as subsidiaries until October 31, 1926, when the WRECo purchased the remainder of their stock.^[16]

But the 1902 transaction turned the WRECo into the region's largest transit company, with some 60 miles of track stretching from V Street SE in Anacostia, up Pennsylvania Avenue and throughout downtown D.C.; out to Bethesda, Rockville, and Silver Spring in Maryland; and to Glen Echo and Great Falls along the Potomac.

WRECo would compete with the Capital Traction Company for the next three decades.^[6]

Operations

In 1909, the car barn at Wisconsin and Calvert was replaced by the Tenallytown Barn at 5230 Wisconsin Avenue. "The coal was delivered to the new barn in small single truck hoppers via the streetcar line, which was a tremendous feat given the steep grade from the river through Georgetown to Calvert Street," a 2006 history would report.^[20]

For nearly a decade after the expansion, WRECo charged passengers a single five-cent ticket (six tickets could be had for 25 cents) to ride anywhere in the system. But in 1910, WRECo and its subsidiary lines, the Georgetown and Tennallytown and Washington and Rockville, began requiring an additional five-cent ticket for rides that crossed the District-Maryland boundary. Citizens of the D.C. neighborhood of Friendship Heights and of the Montgomery County municipalities of Drummond and Somerset complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission, arguing that the hike was unjust and unreasonable under ICC rules. WRECo responded that streetcar companies were exempt from rules governing railroads. In 1912, the ICC rejected this argument and ordered a stop to the practice.^[18]

At the time, WRECo owned all of the stock of the Washington and Rockville Company and about three-quarters of the Georgetown and Tenallytown Company.^[18]

Washingtonians used the line to reach the 76-acre International Athletic Park,^[21][22] a sporting field, velodrome, and amusement park on the site of Washington's present-day Sibley Hospital.^[6]

In 1911, the WRECo built a trolley park, an amusement park near the end of a line to spur ridership—a practice pioneered by other streetcar companies, including several in the Washington, D.C., area. This was Glen Echo Amusement Park, constructed on the site of an earlier Chautauqua assembly that closed in 1903. The park would remain a fixture of Washington life until closing in the late 1960s; reopened in the 1970s by the National Park Service, the park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and now operates as an arts and cultural center.^[23]

In 1917, the WRECo was running about 140 cars a day, about 20 more than its Capital Traction rival.^[24] The following year, the system operated 60.19 miles of track, more than double the length of the Capital Traction system. Overhead electrical wires powered 26.77 miles of double track and 3.99 miles of single track, while underground systems powered 23.09 miles of double track and 6.34 miles of single track. It shared 1.55 miles of underground-powered double track with Capital Traction, and 0.7 miles with the Washington and Virginia Company.^[2]

But far more often, portions of the WRECo system competed with Capital Traction on slightly different routes. For example, the main route of the Metropolitan Railroad roughly paralleled that of the Washington and Georgetown Railroad, which ran largely along Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the major diagonal streets in downtown Washington. But the Metropolitan's route was longer, since it had to zigzag on north–south and east–west streets.

From 1913 to 1921, WRECo was paid to operate yet another similarly named streetcar company connecting Wisconsin Avenue with a Potomac River community: the Washington and Great Falls Railway and Power Company.^[15] The only streetcar line to actually reach Great Falls, the WGFPC was a project of developers unconnected to the WRECo. They sought merely to increase the value of their land and incipient residential development, and were uninterested in operating a streetcar as a business. So they paid the WRECo—specifically, its Washington and Rockville Railway subsidiary—to furnish, operate, and power the rolling stock.^[15][25] Tracklaying began in mid-1912^[26] and the line opened in 1913.^[3] It was generally operated as a stub, and often with just a single trolley shuttling back and forth. "However, for at least a while, a through service was operated to downtown Washington, with cars from Great Falls running all the way to 8th Street," the National Capital Trolley Museum wrote in 2012.^[25] Some passengers rode to the Great Falls Hotel.^[27] The railroad ceased operations in 1921.^[3]

New ownership

North American Company began to acquire stock in WRECo in 1922, gaining a controlling interest by 1928.^[16] North American had once been one of the original stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.^[28]

On December 1, 1933, WRECo, Capital Traction, and the Washington Rapid Transit bus company merged to form the Capital Transit Company. WRECo continued as a holding company, owning 50% of Capital Transit and 100% of the Potomac Electric Power Co., but Capital Traction was dissolved.^[16]

By December 31, 1933, North American Company owned 50.016% of the voting stock of WRECo. North American also tried to purchase Capital Traction, but never owned more than 2.5% of Capital Traction stock.^[16] But for the first time street railways in Washington were under the management of one company.

Capital Transit made several changes. As part of the merger, the Capital Traction generating plant in Georgetown was closed (and in 1943 decommissioned) and Capital Transit used only conventionally supplied electric power.^[29] In 1935 it closed several lines and replaced them with bus service. Because the Rockville line in Maryland was one of the lines that was closed, a new terminal, the "Capital Transit Community Terminal," opened at Wisconsin Avenue NW and Western Avenue NW on August 4, 1935.^[30]

The WRECo remained under the ownership of North American Company for the next decade, as a major subsidiary holding company of other lines.

By 1940, North American had become a US$2.3 billion holding company heading up a pyramid of by then 80 companies. It controlled ten major direct subsidiaries in eight of which it owned at least 79%. The WRECo was by then one of the three major holding companies among the ten direct subsidiaries.^[31]

North American Company was broken up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, following the United States Supreme Court decision of April 1, 1946.^[31]