Where are the Lakes?

[Nana Funks]

Harry,

I am certain that you are more informed on the subject of trolleys than I am... and I have tried to find the picture on line that I have referenced so I could post it, but so far I've not had any luck. So I when I got home I looked the picture up to double check...

And it seems that you are right! The picture was in fact taken... of the electric trolley, in 1895. Not 1887! The caption under the picture was referencing that the picture was taken 7 years after Hawes killed his wife and children and dumped two of the bodies in the lake. I must be tired... I had to read it three times before finally figuring it out! Or perhaps the wording was just a little misleading...

The picture of the electric trolley i'm speaking of is in the book "Yesterdays Birmingham", by Malcolm C. McMillan, 1975. The publishing company is E.A Seeman Publishing, Inc., Miami, FL.

Thanks for the correction!

Nana

[harry chickpea]

I got a chance to visit a bookstore yesterday. A currently published book on the city (sorry, didn't get the name of the book) shows that the Birmingham traction company had some horse-pulled streetcars, but also had small steam locomotives in a 0-4-2 configuration that were used to pull trains of trolley cars. As I expected, there was a photo caption indicating that the change to electric occurred in the 1890s. There was one photo of the Highland Lake Resort lake. Pond is a more accurate description.