Although this extension west along Jefferson street from Fifteenth [now SW 18th] was included in the initial franchise gained by Portland Cable Railway Company, it wasn’t opened for revenue service until April 1892. It served the southern entrance to City Park and the West End baseball field nearby, which the railroad company held an interest in. Initially, cable cars along Fifth street alternated their southern termini, with odd-numbered cars climbing the trestle to Portland Heights, and even-numbered cars going to the park. However, by late September 1892, the City Park line was operated as a stub except on Sunday afternoons when business to and from the park warranted the through service.

This first version of the line extended further west and north past the park and into what was then known as Kings Heights or Melinda Heights (later to be Arlington Heights), but this section of track was cut off and abandoned when the water reservoirs in the park were built right across the line’s right of way from November 1893 to March 1895. Sporadic service was provided to the park while the reservoirs were being built. Once the reservoirs were complete the Portland Traction Company tried to negotiate a new franchise to enter the park, but the city council wanted the cable company to pay 1.5 cents per passenger for the right to lay a line entering the park itself – a huge take from a five-cent fare! So instead, the cars thereafter stopped just outside the grounds, approximately where SW Ardmore Avenue would intersect with SW Jefferson today. Curiously, the Kings Heights part of the line isn’t shown on many contemporaneous maps: the best indication of its route is this 1896 map, which was made after the section was abandoned. The north-south part of the line looks like it would roughly correspond with today’s SW Kingston Avenue.

The City Park line was electrified on May 1, 1896 and became the main line of the system, running all the way down Fifth and Jefferson from Union Station to the City Park, making a connection with the remnant cable line up the incline at SW Jefferson and 18th. In early June 1896, the little Alder Street stub was also electrified and was absorbed into the City Park line, all cars making a detour down Alder Street from Fifth to Front and back up again.

Eventually, this line became the Jefferson line, though I’m trying to track down a definitive date for this occurrence. So far, the earliest date I have is October 25, 1902, when a Jefferson street car was “injured” at Eleventh and Jefferson.

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