Another streetcar line built by a real estate concern solely to get potential buyers up to their properties in the West Hills. Service began in 1913, but it was soon discovered that the company did not actually have a franchise for the line, and one was hurriedly drawn up in 1914 to allow service to continue.

Property sales in the heights were slow and the realty companies became delinquent on property assessments and required streetcar improvements very quickly. The lines became “unowned,” with the streetcar company refusing to do any maintenance work because they didn’t have a franchise and the city couldn’t compel them to. The company did continue to run cars over the line for the convenience of residents, however. By the mid-1920s, it seems to have just been agreed on by everyone that the City of Portland owned the lines simply because they owned all the delinquent property – including the trackage! The city eventually leased the lines back to PEPCO’s subsidiary, the Portland Traction Company, for a nominal sum of $1 a year so that the more knowledgeable streetcar crews would be responsible for maintenance instead of the city engineer. The heights lines remained municipally-owned (but operated by the streetcar company) until their closure in 1941.

While the line initially ran up SW Fairview Blvd as far as SW View Place (seen clearly on a 1913 map in The Oregonian, and listed as the outer terminus on a 1915 Pittmon map), by 1918 guides and route lists were naming SW Fairview Blvd and SW Champlain Drive as the end of the line. This seems like it shortens the line by over half a mile, until you realize that Champlain Drive connects to Fairview Blvd at both ends, and the guides are talking about the upper intersection. A newspaper article discussing streetcar routes from 1939 gives the outer terminus as being along “Southwest Fairview boulevard to east line of block 18, Arlington Heights”, which is just to the east of that intersection.

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