Originally operated as a stub line from the end of the Portland Railway, Light & Power’s Lower Albina line at Killingsworth and Albina to meet the Kenton Traction Company’s Stockyards line on Derby [Denver] street in Kenton.

From October 1912, PRL&P operated both lines as through lines to downtown, with the “K – Kenton” running the whole length of the line and the “L – Mississippi Avenue” line turning back at N Albina and Ainsworth. For a short while after the opening of the Broadway Bridge in September 1913, the lines had separate downtown terminuses: the Mississippi line running over the Broadway Bridge and the Kenton line over the Steel Bridge. Complaints from Kenton residents were made almost immediately about the extra length of their route causing overcrowding, and by February 1914, both lines ran over the Broadway bridge and around the same downtown loop.

By 1918, the two lines had merged into the “MA-KENTON - Mississippi Avenue” line, which then gradually just became the “MA - Mississippi Avenue” line.

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