A narrow gauge line created to replace the pioneering standard gauge Fulton Park line up the hill. Early plans for the line had it running up the hill at its southern end – possibly along Taylors Ferry Road – and meeting the old line at the small waiting room that stood on the western edge of Riverview cemetery. From there, a connection could have been made using the old standard gauge line to the other cemeteries along the line. The old track north of Beth Israel cemetery would have been abandoned. These plans were quickly dropped in favor of a terminus at the north-eastern edge of the cemetery on Taylors Ferry Road.

The line was also initially planned to run down the Macadam road (so named for the paving technology used to surface it), but nascent driving associations protested that the perfect road surface would be ruined by the tracks, so a route along S Virginia Avenue was selected instead. An early example of the way that automobile use would influence the history of streetcars!

The line was extended to the corner of S Nebraska and Virginia by late September 1900, and articles suggest that it was scheduled to be completed to the cemetery by Memorial Day, 1901 – which would have been Thursday, May 30 (on the traditional Memorial/Decoration Day).

In May 1912, the old trestle across the Corbett street gulch—in danger of collapsing—was abandoned and the gulch filled in for the streetcar line to cross.

The line’s history is intertwined with that of the North & South Portland line. Officially, the Fulton line was abandoned and merged with the North & South Portland line in 1923 with every second southbound run continuing to Riverview Cemetery, denoted by an “F” dashboard sign on the car. Informally, people and newspapers still continued to refer to these cars as the “Fulton line” for many years.

Untitled