Streetcars to Steamboats

In the early summer of 1905, Thomas Lowry's Twin City Rapid Transit (TCRT) streetcars began rolling westward to Excelsior and Lake Minnetonka. A new era of transportation had arrived. As many as sixty streetcars were sometimes on the line at the same time. The TCRT streetcars could carry passengers to and from the lake . . .

. . . but how was the company going to move the passengers to and from the streetcars?

By steamboat of course!

Lowry and the TCRT recognized that there were three types of Minnetonka boat passengers: lake residents who needed an efficient way to get from place to place; excursionists who wanted to take a leisurely tour of the lake; and visitors from the city who had come to spend time at the company's new amusement park on Big Island. The TCRT could best serve these three types of passengers by providing three different types of steam boat transportation. In the winter of 1905, the company began building a diversified fleet that would do just that.

The centerpiece of the TCRT fleet was a team of six fast torpedo stern steamers that would serve lake residents by running a tight schedule similar to the company's streetcars. The new boats even looked like streetcars. They were finished with the same canary yellow paint. Their seating capacity and interior decoration (all the way down to the split cane passenger seats) were identical to those of their land-bound cousins. They were even named after major destinations on the TCRT's trolley system: Como, Harriet, Hopkins, Minnehaha, Stillwater, and White Bear.

The Minnetonka Record reported that these "streetcar boats" moved lake residents "from their cottages to their places of business in the city as expeditiously as the trains [could], with the additional pleasure of a trip by water every morning and evening."