The Fitzgeralds Go.West

Chicago’s five Fitzgerald brothers call themselves “just a bunch of farmers trying to run a few busses.” To the list of 31 cities in which the brothers already run their “few” busses and streetcars, they added another last week—Los Angeles. Through American City Lines, Inc., a subsidiary of National City Lines, Inc., top holding company in the Fitzgerald chain, the brothers bought the stock of the $50,000,000 Los Angeles Railway Corp. from the estate of Henry E. Huntington, one of the builders of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and collector of art, books and legends. A group of 14 investment banking firms bought the Railway Corp. bonds. Total purchase price: over $12,500,000.

Bravely the Fitzgerald brothers moved into a city that has seen 41 streetcar companies go broke in 70 years, but still has a trolley system too small for the job. Soon after the turn of the century, 14 different companies were operating in Los Angeles, chiefly as sidelines for real-estate promoters. Their practice was to organize trolley lines from the city to their new subdivisions. Once the lots were sold, the lines went bankrupt.

The Elysian Field. The blissfully named Elysian Park Street Railway Co. was typical. Organized to sell lots in then suburban Elysian Park, the company had one horse-drawn car. Once the only driver said: “The owners furnished the horse and I the feed. My pay was $4 a week and all I took in … about 10¢ a day. I had a banjo and was learning to play. I would start from one end of the line and busy myself with my banjo. The horse stopped whenever he found good grazing. …”

But Henry E. Huntington put an end to such lighthearted operations. He grabbed up the tangle of lines, sorted them into four efficient systems. By 1910, Los Angeles County probably had the nation’s finest interurban system and fastest city lines. But Huntington, worried about the automobile, unloaded everything but the Los Angeles city system on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Los Angeles took to the auto as did few other cities. Huntington could not make his Los Angeles Railway pay. Politicos kept in office for years merely by fighting him and an increase in the 5¢ fare. When Huntington died in 1927, the Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, as trustees for the Huntington estate, became operators of the system, held on until the war boom in traction companies brought the chance to sell.

Junk the Trolley? As usual, E. Roy Fitzgerald, 51, the taciturn president of National City Lines, kept his plans for Los Angeles to himself and his brothers: Ed, 60,’the quiet, conservative treasurer; Ralph, 49, hard-driving boss of operations and maintenance; Kent, 45, who runs the Illinois operations for National; and John, 54, head of an independent bus line.

The Fitzgeralds usually revive run-down transportation systems by scrapping car tracks, replacing trolleys with busses. This will be a welcome move in Los Angeles, which has the greatest accumulation of antiquated rolling stock on the Pacific Coast. Some of the 1,140 cars were running in 1910. But even the old cars are needed today. Any modernization must await war’s end.