95-year-old recalls last days of Springfield's trolley cars

The Magnolia Square nursing facility is home to a unique little jewel of Springfield's history and her name is Juanita Leach.

Back in 1937 Juanita was 13 years-old when the Hindenburg blew up, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ruled at the box office, and Bob Barker had just moved to Springfield.

The average cost of a home? $4,100.

A loaf of bread was five cents and a gallon of gas was 10 cents.

It also marked the final days of trolley cars in the Queen City.

"They were a little dangerous for pedestrians," said John Sellars, the Executive Director for the Springfield-Greene Co. Historical Museum.

They had started laying trolley tracks in the square back in the 1880's.

The first trolleys were pulled by donkeys and horses then powered by fuel and finally by electricity.

"They even developed a catcher on the front that was mesh so if a person fell in front of one it would clamp up on 'em so they couldn't fall out and get run over and killed," Sellars explained.

By 1937 the trolleys were being replaced by buses, and on the last day of August the electric cars made their final runs.

"Everybody got to ride for free that day," Sellars said. "so we've got a couple of wonderful photographs (seen in the accompanying story) that are just fabulous of the trolley cars packed with people. Everybody wanted to ride on that last day."

Among those passengers was Juanita who was a little overwhelmed by the crush of people.

"I would say it was more scary (than fun) because I was a kid being out by myself without my parents," she recalled. "And I don't know why I was."

The new downtown historical museum pays tribute to that special time in Springfield's past with a mock up of a trolley car that also has a video time capsule inside where you can view important moments from the city's past.

"It was a very romantic time when the city had great promise," Sellars said of the late 1930's. "Part of that was the street cars. We were the second city west of the Mississippi to have electric street cars."

There are also reminders of the trolley car era on city streets to this very day although you may not notice it.

There's an underpass at Grant and Commercial that has a unique set up.

"It's got two lanes of traffic on one side and there's a divider and one-lane on the other side of the divider," Sellars said. "That single lane is higher (13-ft, 6 inches compared to 11-ft, 6 inches) because that lane was for the electric trolley."

Not far from there at Grant and Division is the shell of the gas station that Juanita and her late husband Hiram once owned. The mother of two boys has seen many modern marvels come-and-go in her 95 years but when asked what she considers mankind's greatest technological achievement?

"The most thrilling thing we got was indoor plumbing," she replied. "A bathroom. That was really something."

One modern marvel she's glad to do without?

A cell phone.

"Everybody's so busy with 'em they don't know what's going on around them," she said.

Wisdom for the ages.