In keeping with someone elses post about the tragic accident involving the Mt. Auburn Incline in the 1880s: The Mt. Auburn / Main Street Incline had the shortest length of operation of all the inclines, starting 1871 and shutting down in 1898, thus there are no postcards (that I know of) to be had although I am pretty sure there will be some real photo postcards somewhere. The resort on top was called the Lookout House. The Incline started at the head of Main Street and went up to the top of Mt. Auburn. This incline was different from all the others in that there were two different grades. The bottom half was much steeper than the top half. The first four images show the incline as it looked prior to 1878 which is when the permanent cabs were rebuilt with open platforms to haul horsecars. In 1889 the Cincinnati Inclined Plane Company electrified their railway system and the incline was again rebuilt for electric cars. You can see how they had to chop most of the lower station up until it looked like the building in the 5th image in order to have a straight run to the incline for the railroad tracks. The last two images show the incline during it use with electric streetcars. The Incline was involved in the most tragic wreck in which a incline was involved. in 1889 a car carrying 7 passengers climbed to the top of the hill and the machinery could not be stopped because the brakes failed to slow it down and the cable pulled right out of the car. There was no safety catch to hold the car and it hurtled to the bottom of the incline slamming into the wall. The roof shot across the street and crashed into homes on Mulberry Street. All but one passenger died. The Incline closed in 1898 because Vine Street hill became the route the electric streetcars began to use. Ive looked high and low for any sort of photograph of the actual accident, but have had no luck.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:39:13 +0000
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