\n\n \nDean Poling described the origins of Valdosta’s streetcars in\n\nValdosta Scene 26 February 2010:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n \nIn 1900, Valdosta-Lowndes County arranged to host the Georgia State\nFair, which marked the first such fair in South Georgia, according\nto the \u201cHistory of Lowndes County Georgia: 1825-1941.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nArea leaders boldly invited the world to attend. To accompany the\nfair, Valdosta built a streetcar system, becoming America’s smallest\ntown to operate a trolley. Thousands flocked to Valdosta for the\nfair as the town earned other nicknames, \u201cQueen City of\nSouthwest Georgia,\u201d \u201cblossom among the pines,\u201d and\n\u201cthe busiest little city of them all,\u201d Schmier notes.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n\n \nThat postcard image and the one of the waiting shelter at VSU\ncome from RailGA.com’s\n\nStreet Railways of Valdosta<\/a>.\nBack in 1922 it was South Georgia State Normal college\nand the only building (other than the waiting shelter) was West Hall.\n<\/p>\n \nFor how futuristic those streetcars must have seemed in 1900, compare\nthe electric streetcar on the right below to the horse-drawn carriages\non the same street. The street is North Patterson. Do you recognize the building?\n<\/p>\n \n\n \nWant to buy a ticket?\n<\/p>\n \n\n \nSorry, it went out of business in 1924,\nand the tracks were sold for scrap during World War II.\nWhy?\nMaybe there’s some insight in\n\nTaken for a Ride<\/a> showing at VSU Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n \n\n \n-jsq\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What’s that little shelter by the front gate of VSU? It’s the last physical remnant of the Valdosta Street Railway, an early 20th century streetcar system, when Valdosta was the smallest city in the country to have one. Valdosta had 5,613 people in 1900, about twice as many as present-day Hahira. Dean Poling described […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1362,15,19,449,134],"tags":[8736,8828,1736,8705,8701,8709,8702,12,7,1735,8767,6,1175,1734,8743],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-bicycle","category-education","category-history","category-transportation","category-vsu","tag-activism","tag-bicycle","tag-critical-mass","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-social-issues-in-film-series","tag-transportation","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-state-university","tag-valdosta-street-railway","tag-vsu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-7Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"\/blog\/images\/6a0120a58214e4970b017d3c0c1120970c-pi.jpg\")
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<\/a>\nOf course, if we wanted to, we could\n\nhave streetcars again.<\/a>\nOr a\n\na bus system<\/a>; there’s already a plan for that,\nand it would cost less than many of the road projects proposed around here.\nOr at least better bicycle lanes.\nAny of these non-automobile transportation methods would help the whole county\nby helping attract knowledge-based businesses.\n<\/p>\n