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In 1869, Andrew Hallidie (1836–1900) observed passenger-carrying horses struggling on wet cobblestones as they made the trek up San Francisco’s Jackson Street. As a result, Hallidie created a steam-engine-powered, wire-cable driven rail system to take passengers up the city’s steep hills. His father, an inventor, had patented the “wire rope” cable in Britain that Hallidie employed in his cable cars. Hallidie tested his first car in August of 1873, and his Clay Street Hill Railroad began public service in September. In the late 1870s and ’80s, several competing cable car lines emerged. The 1906 earthquake and fires reduced many of the rail lines to rubble. Most cars on the California Street line burned. Many of the Market Street cable cars operating west of Van Ness Avenue that survived the earthquake were converted to temporary housing. See “San Francisco: City of the World” on display, post-security, in Terminal 2 and online at: https://bit.ly/SFCityOfTheWorld SFO Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone—the original, present, and future inhabitants and stewards of the San Francisco Peninsula. Please join us in recognizing and honoring Ramaytush Ohlone ancestors, descendants, and all Indigenous communities who have inhabited the Bay Area for hundreds of generations. 📸: Clay Street Hill Cable Car line c. 1873 San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library AAC-7879; R2024.0529.010 Bay and Taylor cable car model c. 1950s Courtesy of Cavallini & Co. Archives L2024.0501.008 Powell/Mason cable car model c. 1950s SFO Museum 1999.619.001; L2024.0519.003 Cable car models c. 1950s Courtesy of Mickey McGowan L2024.0510.001-.007, .048
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