This is one of the transitional streetcar companies that navigated the change from horse and steam to electric motive power. It was formed as a subsidiary company of the Willamette Iron Bridge Company (sometimes also referred to as the “Morrison Street Bridge Company”), which constructed the first Morrison Street bridge in 1887, to operate the streetcar lines across the bridge between East Portland and Portland.

The company’s initial horsecar line (from 1888) ran up and down East Fifth Street [now Grand Avenue] in East Portland from Holladay to Division, with a connection to Portland over the first Morrison Bridge. As the company held no franchise for the City of Portland (then only on the West Side), the line ended on the western approach of the bridge.

From East Fifth and Morrison, a steam motor line was extended eastwards to Sunnyside at Belmont and 34th (1888), and then to Mount Tabor at Belmont and 69th (1889), where a large car barn and turntable for the steam engines was built. Electrification of the line happened after the Willamette Bridge Railway Company was absorbed by the City & Suburban Railway Company.

The pioneering Albina electric line opened on November 1, 1889 and formed a loop from the old Steel Bridge up Interstate to Stanton and east up the hill to Williams, where it turned south to close the loop. At Stanton and Commercial, the line met the company’s St. Johns steam motor line. The Albina line would eventually split into two legs – Lower Albina at the foot of the hill along Mississippi Avenue, and Upper Albina at the top of the hill along Williams Avenue. The Irvington line along Holladay and Multnomah streets opened shortly thereafter.

On July 1, 1890 – the day after their East Side horse stables at SE 2nd and Morrison had burned down – the company formally acquired the two branches of the electric Waverly-Woodstock line, which it was already contracted to operate on behalf of the subscribers to the line.

On September 3, 1891, the Willamette Bridge Railway Company and the Transcontinental Railway Company—which had been purchased by the former in August 1890, but had retained its operating name—fully merged and became the City & Suburban Railway Company.

Lines

• Albina (1889–1891)
• East Fifth-street (1888–1892*)
• Irvington (1890–1914, 1933–1940)
• Mount Tabor (1889–1948)
• Richmond (1890–1936)
• St. Johns (1889–1937)
• Sunnyside (1888–1933*)
• Woodstock (1890–1936)

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