Sheridan's Last Streetcar Make Final Run Through Town To Its First Permanent Home

Wyoming's last streetcar made what will hopefully be its last trip across on Friday. The electric trolley hasn’t moved under its own power in almost a century, but its history has moved many in the community to preserve it for posterity.

 “Ol’ #115,” a streetcar operated by the defunct Sheridan Railway Company, was lifted onto a flatbed and carried through the streets of Sheridan. It was placed at the Big Goose Natural Area, owned by the Sheridan Community Land Trust, where it will stay as a permanent outdoor display on the community's history.

Kevin Knapp, history program manager for the Sheridan Community Land Trust, feels vindicated by this move. After decades of exposure and leapfrogging across Sheridan, the streetcar finally has a permanent home.

“Our mission is conservation, recreation, and history,” he said. “The streetcar fits into our idea of demonstrating, educating, and interpreting history for people in an open, public space. The restoration will take years, but it’ll be there for everyone.”

On The Streets Of Sheridan

In the early 1900s, Sheridan was a booming mining community. The Sheridan Railway Company, established in 1910, was a direct response to the needs of local industry and its employees.

“At that time, Sheridan was just a village while there were tens of thousands of people living and working in the company towns north of Sheridan,” Knapp said. “When the railroad and the mining companies really got going, they just poured a bunch of money into modernizing Sheridan.”

That modernization came in the form of power plants, paved streets, and irrigation projects in Sheridan. According to Knapp, the Sheridan Railway Company’s fleet of streetcars met a variety of community needs.

“The real purpose was to connect the shaft mines to the towns,” he said. “A fleet of 10 streetcars would take miners into town, take their kids in to go to school, and could be used for freight shipping. They had a variety of routes that went all around town.”

The streetcars were a regular fixture in Sheridan until 1926. The historic floods of 1923 destroyed Sheridan’s streets, and there wasn’t much funding or desire to replace the rails in the age of the automobile.

The floods weren’t the only thing that contributed to the downfall of the Sheridan Railway Company. Knapp said a fundamental shift in the mining industry shifted everything out of Sheridan, further derailing the future of Sheridan’s streetcars.  

“The shaft mines were already in decline as everything started to move toward strip mining,” he said. “The railroads that had been the coal industry’s main customer started using diesel engines. Gillette became the place to be, and it just wasn’t worth reinvesting in public streetcars.”

A Streetcar Of Desire

Ol’ #115 has been a Sheridan icon even before it went off the rails. It became one of Sheridan’s public projects for the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976.

“Sheridan had a lot of different events and projects related to the Bicentennial,” Knapp said. “At that time, there were still people alive who had been operators of those streetcars, so they investigated rumors that there was one in a field somewhere.”

The streetcar was found on a nearby farm, worse for wear after 50 years of exposure to Wyoming’s weather. Nevertheless, several companies and craftsmen came together to restore it as a piece of Sheridan’s history, in honor of the nation’s 200th birthday.

“That transferred a lot of knowledge and a nostalgia for streetcars to further generations,” Knapp said. “I was a kid who remembered that streetcar being on display. The doors were open, and you could go and sit on it. A lot of people have fond memories of that streetcar.”

Unfortunately, the streetcar hasn’t found a permanent home since then. Knapp remembered it being on display outside the Best Western Sheridan Center when he was young, but said it’s changed hands and locations several times since 1976.

The most recent owner of the streetcar was the North Main Association. Their goal was to make it a fixture at the North Main Street Gateway, welcoming visitors to Sheridan, but that never came to fruition.

When the North Main Association decided to sell the lot where the streetcar was sitting, Knapp said they “graciously donated” Ol’ #115 to the Sheridan Community Land Trust.

“Nobody wanted it to sit out for another winter, and they could see that we had the resources and momentum to do something about it,” he said.

Home On The Range

After acquiring Ol’ #115, the Sheridan Community Land Trust raised $30,000 to move it to Big Goose Natural Area, a 117-acre parcel of land southeast of Sheridan. They refer to it as “a community jewel that connects people to land and history today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.”

“We recently moved our headquarters there from a little studio downtown,” Knapp said. “It was a major upgrade for us.”

There are already displays on Sheridan’s mining history at Big Goose, including several mine carts from the old shaft mines. Knapp said there’s a more ambitious plan for the streetcar.

“We’re raising $25,000 to get a permanent structure over it,” he said. “That will shield it from the elements, and we can begin the restoration from there.”

Knapp isn’t sure how much it’ll cost to fully restore the streetcar, but he’s pursuing several grants to cover those costs. He sees the project taking five to six years to complete, but he’s leveraging the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.

“In 2026, it'll be 50 years since the last restoration, and 100 years since it was retired,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get movement on this for years, so it’s interesting to get people involved now and tie it into the 250th anniversary.”

After 50 years of exposure, Knapp said the streetcar has “further and further deteriorated,” despite the 1976 restoration. They’ve managed to stabilize it for now, but fully restoring Ol’ #115 will require “a massive effort” both in time and resources.

Many Sheridan residents hope the streetcar could find a new spot in town, but Knapp said the Big Goose Natural Area will be its permanent home. That’s one thing the streetcar hasn’t had in the last century.

“People want it downtown once it’s restored, because it’s a more centralized area,” he said. “My firm argument is that it’s been displayed in more centralized areas for decades, but it’s never been protected from the elements and routinely maintained. Now, I can check on it from my office window, and we can teach about it, work on it, and maintain it.”

'Small' Successes

Nobody knows what happened to the rest of Sheridan’s streetcars. Knapp is still hoping to track them down and potentially find a few that survived the last century.

“There have to be remnants of other ones somewhere, and that's something we're investigating at the moment,” he said.

In the meantime, Knapp and the Sheridan Community Land Trust are excited that Ol’ 115 has a home at their headquarters. As they maintain and restore the historic vehicle, they can use it to educate the public about Sheridan’s rich history.

Knapp sees the streetcar’s future as an “achievable project” that can have a significant impact on their work in the community. When people get excited about and contribute to the restoration of Ol’ 115, they’ll be rewarded with a tangible example of what’s possible when it comes to preserving Sheridan’s history.

“A lot of the work I do as a historic preservationist is slow-going and kind of boring,” he said. “The streetcar is a smaller project that will demonstrate our investment in preserving local history. It’s exciting for everyone because it’s so iconic, and that’ll make it a rallying point for our work to preserve historic sites and structures in Sheridan.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.