A photograph of the old trolley brought back memories of downtown walks with my paternal grandfather in the early 1950s. I can still visualize the marks on the streets where the electric streetcar tracks used to be, beginning at the train depot by Laredo College going east on Farragut Street for two blocks, then north on Santa Rita Avenue for one block to Matamoros Street, and then east on Matamoros for six blocks to Salinas Avenue.
Mrs. Yolanda Parker/Nick Sánchez Collection, UTSA Libraries Special Collections
From here we turned south and walked to follow the marks for one block to Farragut and we turned east for two blocks towards Flores Avenue. We went south on Flores for two blocks, by the Laredo Public Library and City Hall to Lincoln Street. We turned east on Lincoln for ten blocks to San Pablo Avenue and to Zacate Creek, which was just across the street. The electric street car route would then cross the arroyo on the bridge heading east towards the Heights.
My wife Jo Emma took this more recent photograph in 1995, a panoramic view of the Arroyo del Zacate looking north from the bridge where Iturbide Street ends and Market Street begins. The concrete columns in the background, across the arroyo, were part of the streetcar system.
This means of transportation was started in 1889. Laredo was the first city to operate electric streetcars west of the Mississippi River. They became obsolete when the city expanded bus routes in 1935.
Remains of trolley system, Zacate Creek, looking south
