From the beginning of their existence, automobiles posed a threat to the trolley systems that had developed in large and small cities across the nation.
Bangor’s electric trolley system radiated a web of tracks extending all the way from West Market Square to Old Town, Hampden, Charleston and Brewer. By 1915, it was providing more than 7 million rides annually to area residents, as well as hauling freight and farm produce.
Service was continuing to expand. The new Post Office Square Loop that included a waiting room with “marble and tile” toilet facilities for men and women in the Graham Building received rave reviews in the Bangor Daily News. Rail service across the Bangor-Brewer Bridge was finally achieved. Heavier gauge tracks were allowing for faster transportation.
Meanwhile, automobilists thought they saw money to be made.
Advertisements for “public autos,” which would soon be known as taxis, were becoming commonplace in the Bangor newspapers in 1915.
One such ad offered “A Public Auto for ladies and gentlemen. Calls at your house and takes you to whist parties and shopping, making accommodating stops … New car in first class condition, with careful driver.” Interested customers were advised to call TEL. 975-J, or to leave an order at R.A. Bourgeois’ barber shop at 128 Main St.
The jitney or jitney bus, a type of public auto, was another new concept in transportation entrepreneurship that was making its first appearance in the Queen City in 1915.
Unlike taxis, which went anywhere they were summoned, the jitney vehicles — which were often large automobiles — followed prearranged routes, often shadowing trolley routes, offering riders an alternative for less money than the crowded electrics.
It was said a jitney was a small coin of little value — perhaps a nickel — a reference to the jitney’s low fares, which often started at a nickel. Some people were afraid they would eventually put the trolleys out of business.
“Everywhere the electrics go the jitneys also travel,” the Bangor Daily Commercial reported March 30, echoing other newspapers. Hundreds of them were competing with trolleys in West Coast cities, in particular. For example, the Pacific Electric Railway of Los Angeles reported it had lost $500,000 in fares in four months to jitney competition.
But there was also a bright side, the Commercial said, a long-time critic of the monopolistic policies of trolleys. “Already the people of a number of cities are noting improvements in trolley service and the granting of requests that have long been denied.”
On April 24, the first jitney bus advertisement that I noticed in local newspapers appeared in the Bangor Daily News. Two entrepreneurs named Green and Sawyer promised that their jitney would leave Union Station every 15 minutes and follow the Bangor Railway and Electric Co.’s State Street loop from noon to midnight. Green and Sawyer had two autos, and the fare would only be 5 cents.
But Green and Sawyer soon discovered they had obstacles to overcome before they could get rich running the city’s politically powerful trolley system out of business.
On April 27, this headline adorned a page in the Bangor Daily News: “Police Chief Told to Stop The Jitneys.” They had no license and didn’t pay taxes. Everyone had to have a license to do business on Bangor streets, from the lunch carts in West Market Square to the horse-drawn carriages waiting for riders in front of Union Station.
Safety was another issue, as was Bangor’s ability to control business enterprises running within its borders. Mayor Frank Robinson “expressed himself very emphatically” about “the danger of running of the cars by irresponsible boys as was witnessed in the city streets on Saturday.” The mayor pointed out further “that the jitneys had come over from Brewer” and were running without licenses or paying a fee to the city.
A Portland Chamber of Commerce committee had recently issued a report enumerating “the evils of jitneys,” such as damage to highways, a great increase in street traffic, the need for more traffic officers and many accidents. Even robberies had occurred in them.
By the end of the week, the mayor had appointed a committee to make a “searching investigation.”
Benjamin Blanchard, a lawyer and the city’s municipal judge, also stepped forward to say he was representing a corporation that wanted to operate “so-called jitney cars.” It would be “the first organized movement for a service here, the mushroom outbreak last week having been apparently the unorganized venture of individuals in Brewer and Orono.”
Meanwhile, the local papers continued to spread the jitney gospel. “Invasion of the Jitney Bus” read the headline on a story in the Bangor Daily News April 30, originally published by the New York Sun. The subhead added, “Remarkable Spread of the Five Cent Automobile Ride in All Parts of the Country.”
Meanwhile, the growing excitement in Bangor became something of a joke and a gimmick for advertising. A local cigar company ran an ad promising that “bus or no jitney bus, there’s always a good investment for that idle nickel — blow it for a BFA cigar and have a peaceful puff.”
Bryant the jeweler urged people to buy diamond rings and expensive watches on “the Jitney Plan — Get the diamond or get the watch on payment of 5 cents — Let us explain …”
Jitneys were even in the movies. “A Jitney Comedy” was playing at the Palace. You could get in “for the price of one jitney.”
On May 22, the Bangor Daily News, which tended to side with local trolley interests, announced that the board of aldermen had “rushed through a slovenly set of rules.” A license would cost $10. Jitney companies had to set a route and a schedule and stick to it. They had to carry a sign on their “clean and sanitary” vehicles that said “Public Motor Bus.”
No one could ride on the running board or “in front of the front seat or sit upon the doors.” Drivers, who had to be at least 16 years old, weren’t allowed to smoke, drink alcohol or use indecent language. They couldn’t race other conveyances or pass trolleys on the side where passengers were getting off.
These rules went on and on. The reporter grumbled deep down in his story that “Bangor has gotten along very well so far without these jitneys, and there appears no reason for haste now …”
A disgusted editorial on May 2 proclaimed “The ‘Jitney Bus’ Delusion.” The system was doomed to fail economically. In the meantime, the city would be turning over its streets to “a swarm of troublesome vehicles which congest traffic, which operate generally on routes already cared for by trolley cars, which open up no new residence sections as trolleys do, which contribute little in fees or taxes to help pay city expenses, which do not run on regular schedules and are undependable in bad weather …”
Two jitney licenses were awarded by the city, the Bangor Daily News announced June 23. The applicants were R. Forrest Moore and W.T. Wheaton. Moore planned to operate a seven-passenger Knox on the Hammond Street run going by way of Main and Union streets. Wheaton planned to run his five-passenger Ford on the Highlands line.
As the summer progressed, the jitneys got more bad press in the Bangor Daily News. “The Jitney Cars Just Run Amuck,” declared a headline Aug. 4. Jitney operators were ignoring the city’s new rules. Jitney lines were operating without applying for licenses.
“A new Ford car has recently been placed on the Hammond Street run for instance, in place of another car licensed some weeks ago, but operating only a few days. Jitneys to Old Town, Bradford and Orrington have been running, although no licenses have been granted them to come into Bangor …”
Meanwhile, the Commercial continued to give the jitney craze the benefit of the doubt. “The jitney seems to have come to stay in the larger places of population and few will deny its convenience, especially in covering routes that are not covered by the street cars,” an editorial said Sept. 24.
I have yet to discover the fate of this experiment in public transportation in Bangor. The effort to imitate the trolleys may have been what killed the movement eventually. Or it may have been all the regulations piled on by municipalities like Bangor trying to protect powerful trolley interests.
In hindsight, however, it’s clear that the momentary rise of the jitneys was another step toward the demise of the electric trolley system, which lasted in Bangor in a diminishing state for only another 30 years.
On an ironic note, the Bangor Railway & Electric Co. — the city’s trolley company — announced it was planning to launch its own jitney bus — a 12-passenger Stanley Steamer — that would extend its Hampden route daily to Winterport and Frankfort. The company would even offer a special evening run from Winterport to Riverside Park, its Hampden amusement park, and back once a week, according to the June 28 Bangor Daily News.
Having read the papers well into the fall of 1915, I’ve seen no further notice of this development. Perhaps someone thought better of it or perhaps it was a joke inserted into the paper by a bored reporter.
Wayne E. Reilly’s column on Bangor a century ago appears in the newspaper every other Monday. His latest book, “Hidden History of Bangor: From Lumbering Days to the Progressive Era,” is available where books are sold. Comments can be sent to him at wreilly.bdn@gmail.com