Near the end of the 19th century, Boston needed to alleviate its heavily congested downtown traffic. The three-phase subway project, completed in about three years, was successful in 
reducing the gridlock. It also led to further subway expansion in the 20th century.
In the colonial era, Bostonians relied on walking, horses, horse-drawn carriages and water transportation – including a ferry service begun by Thomas Williams in 1631 from Boston to Chelsea – to conduct activities within their small peninsula and to nearby communities (e.g., Cambridge and Roxbury). As the population and land area of Boston expanded, horse-drawn modes of public transportation emerged. By 1793 stagecoach service had begun from Boston to Cambridge. The stage was followed in the 1820s by the the omnibus — a lengthier version of the stagecoach, but with frequent stops.
A major advance came on March 26, 1856, when the Cambridge Horse Railway Company introduced the first horse-drawn street railway from downtown Boston to Cambridge. No longer did passengers have to endure jouncing travel over rutted and muddy roads. The instant success of this streetcar railway drew numerous competitors. Ridership overall expanded to 13 million in 1860 and about 60 million by 1880.
Henry Whitney
Henry Whitney foresaw the need for further improvements in the system. So he formed the West End Street Railway Company in 1887. He realized that sharing several end-of-line stations with his rivals in the narrow downtown Boston streets promoted congestion. Other inefficiencies included the need to switch to rivals’ tracks and higher than necessary fares.
Henry Whitney around 1900
After acquiring a majority of the common stock in each of his four major competitors, he convinced the Massachusetts Legislature to legalize his virtual monopoly through passage of the West End Consolidation Act of 1887. True to his promise of benefits, passengers enjoyed lowered fares, better routes and expansion of service.
Whitney, however, realized that the cost of maintaining thousands of horses was unsustainable. Fortunately, he learned that Frank Sprague had installed an electric motor traction system in Richmond, Va., to power its streetcars. After witnessing this achievement in July 1888 with his general manager, Whitney soon contracted with Sprague to electrify a streetcar (trolley) line in Boston with overhead lines. It opened on Jan. 1, 1889. Within five years, most of the horse-drawn railway cars were non-existent.
Although the faster trolley cars improved service in the Boston area, their arrival only worsened downtown congestion. With roughly 200,000 people arriving daily in the center of Boston, congestion became especially dense in the area of Washington and Tremont streets. Walkers and horse-drawn vehicles only compounded the problem.
Controversy
Finally, a Rapid Transit Commission, approved by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1891, issued a report about the congestion on April 6, 1892. It recommended, among several other projects, that a subway system be built that would link to the surface lines of the West End Street Railway. In July 1894 the Legislature authorized the formation of the Boston Transit Commission to develop what would become a three-phase subway project.
Opponents of the subway voiced concern that it would be too costly to build, construction would disrupt business operations, workers would be exposed to dangerous conditions, various non-human inhabitants (e.g., rats and insects) would be found, and passengers would experience breathing bad air underground. Nevertheless, politicians, newspapers and other adherents convinced voters to approve a citizen referendum for the subway system on July 25, 1894.
The first phase of subway construction began on March 28, 1895, under the supervision of the Boston Transit Commission. The subway would run under Tremont Street between Boylston Street and Park Street stations. It would be known as the Tremont Street Subway.
Building the Subway
Construction workers on the Tremont Street subwau
The project mainly used a novel “cut-and-cover” technique of construction that was economical. Workers dug sections of trenches about 10 feet in length, 12 feet in width at a depth of 6 feet. Temporary wooden braces supported the walls, to prevent the dirt from caving in. They were used to form a temporary roof over the top of the trench. The trenches were then dug down to a depth of 50 feet. After reaching this level, steel beams reinforced the sides of the walls, with concrete used to build walls and floors. Brick arches between steel beams formed the roof of the tunnel, with the upper surface containing soil and concrete. Small carts carried tons of dirt, rock and other items on conveyors to railcars. The railcars then transported them to landfill projects in Boston and its suburbs.
Tunneling Through Trouble
Despite all the construction activity, streetcar service on Tremont Street continued while work occurred day and night.
Two notable incidents happened during the digging of the tunnel. On April 18, 1895, only three weeks after the project began, medical students discovered human remains from the Central Burying Ground. They were interred beneath part of Boston Common on Boylston Street. Eventually 910 bodies were found and reburied in the Central Burying Ground. Almost two years later, on March 4, 1897, a gas main on the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets exploded. It killed 10 people and injured more than 50 others in the area. Work in the tunnel did not directly cause the explosion, thus allowing work on the subway project to continue for the final six months of construction.
Immediate aftermath of the gas explosion
The Subway Finished
On Sept. 1, 1897, the first section of the subway system opened to the public. Trolley car No. 1752 left the Allston Depot, operated by James Reed; entered the Public Garden entrance to the Boylston Street station at 6:01 a.m., and reached the end of the one-half mile trip to the Park Street station three minutes later. By midnight more than 150,000 passengers had paid the 5-cent fare for the ride on the four-track line between the two stations. Consequently, congestion dropped noticeably on Tremont Street.
The first subway car, driven by Jimmy Reed
The second and third phases of the subway system were soon completed by November 1898. They allowed passengers to travel about two miles between the Boylston Street and Haymarket Square stations. The entire three-phase project had a total cost of about $4 million. The city paid for it with no state or federal funds. The West End Railway Company originally agreed to lease the subway, but subsequently leased all its lines to the Boston Elevated Railway Company in December 1897. Additional development of the subway system continued into the 20th century. The last subway expansion, the Huntington Avenue extension, opened in 1941.
In 1947 the Legislature created the Metropolitan Transit Authority, a public utility, to take over the Boston Elevated Railway, a private company.
Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena University near Albany, N.Y.
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Photo Credits
Images: Construction workers: Tremont St. subway. 1896. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/96512682/>.. Park Street Subway station postcard Boston, Park St. Subway Station. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2025667735/>. Stagecoach Swett, Moses, Artist. Phoenix Line, “safety coaches” Owned by Beltzhoover & Co. running between Washington and Baltimore, time 5 hours / / M. Swett, invt. et del. ; lith. of Endicott & Swett, N.Y. [Between 1830 and 1834] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/95504531/>. Gas explosion Explosion at Tremont & Boylston St., Boston, Mar. 4. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2005686695/>. First subway car By Unknown author – Frank Cheney, Anthony Mitchell Sammarco. Trolleys Under the Hub. Arcadia Publishing, 1997. Page 19., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9489740, colorized by ChatGPT.
