Aside from wanting to check into one of the five star hotels in San Francisco , travelers who arrive in this city for the first time are eager to take a ride on a cable car. What draws people to this old fashioned form of transportation? Perhaps it’s something about the open air, the camaraderie of a riding community, heading up and down the steep hills. Perhaps its the joy of riding in a vehicle that began its life in the city one hundred and seventy-three years ago.

In 1873, on August 2nd, a man named Andrew Smith Hallidie tested the first cable on Clay Street at four in the morning. His idea for a steam engine powered and cable driven rail system came about in 1869 after he witnessed an act of cruelty, horses whipped as they fought against wet streets to pull a horsecar up Jackson Street. Cable cars, then, began their life as a humane act for animals.

Hallidie’s father held a patent on “wire rope” cable in England, and his son used the cable system to haul ore out of mines and as a means to build suspension bridges. The first public service run of the cars began on September 1st of 1873 as the Clay Street Hill Railroad. Four years later, other cable car companies popped up: The Sutter Street Railroad, California Street Cable Railroad, Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railroad, Market Street Cable Railroad, Ferries & Cliff House Railway, and Omnibus Railroad & Cable Company. All of these companies appeared on the scene from 1877 to 1889.

By the time of the great earthquake and fire of 1906, electric streetcars were well in use, ever since 1888. While cable cars were the main vehicle of choice for city transportation, some of the damage to the lines by the quake caused the city government to wonder if the streetcars usefulness had come to an end. By 1947, the mayor of San Francisco suggested that the city should get rid of the cable car lines in favor of buses. Thankfully, though, the citizens of San Francisco recognized the value of the cable car to the local economy and to tourism, and founded the citizens’ Committee to Save the Cable Cars.

Today, it’s possible for tourists to jump onto a cable car and take it to the Cable Car Museum at 1201 Mason Street. It’s located in the historic Washington/Mason cable car barn and powerhouse, overlooking the immense engines and winding wheels that actually pull the cables. From downstairs, visitors will be able to see the cable lines entering the building through channels beneath the street. The museum displays a large collection of grips, track, cable, brake mechanisms, and historic photographs, as well as three antique cable cars from the 1870s, including the only surviving car from the original cable car company, the Clay Street Hill Railroad No. 8 grip car.