Pictured is Jamestown Trolley No. 93. The historic trolley car project is nearly complete after decades of restoration work. Preliminary plans to display the historic trolley in the community are ongoing. Submitted photo

With the restoration of Jamestown Street Railway Trolley Car No. 93 nearly complete, the next task will be to provide a permanent home for displaying and preserving a piece of Jamestown’s history.

Bob Johnston, restoration project founder, said the “decades-long” process of restoring the Jamestown Street Railway Trolley Car No. 93 may have been “easier” than trying to execute a plan to display the trolley car.

According to Johnston, the plan is still to create a display building near the Fenton Mansion for the benefit of the Fenton History Center. He believes a display near the Fenton Mansion featuring the trolley car would enhance the Fenton History Center’s preservation of Jamestown’s history.

“No. 93 is pretty much the last remaining Chautauqua County NY street trolley car,” Johnston said. “At one time there were hundreds of the cars that carried passengers in and around Jamestown, Lakewood, Falconer, Celoron, points around Chautauqua Lake and as far as Westfield and Barcelona, Dunkirk and Fredonia, Buffalo and Erie.”

Johnston said there was also a trolley car connection between Jamestown and Warren, Pennsylvania.

Johnston explained that before the rise in popularity of automobiles and modern paved roads, trolley cars provided people with convenient transportation for work, shopping, entertainment and socialization. He said the trolley car system was utilized in Dunkirk and Fredonia as early as 1866 and was utilized around Chautauqua Lake until 1948.

Historically, the main service area for No. 93 was Jamestown’s Swede Hill, which was home to a large population of people of Swedish descent near the area surrounding Willard Street.

With the support and donations of local businesses and material suppliers and the hard work of Jim Mitchener, main project craftsman, and Johnston, the restoration of No. 93 is nearly completed. Johnston said the trolley car is “looking pretty good” as the finishing touches are being finished.

“With Jim’s passing not too long ago, Bob along with a small number of volunteers, have kept working to finish the remaining bits to be done,” Johnston said. “We now are in need of a support group who sees the value in this type of project, willing to help design, fund and build a permanent home for No. 93 so we can keep it here and preserve it into the future.”

As Johnston looks for a way to permanently display the trolley car, he said it would be “disappointing” if the community was not able to save at least one of the trolley cars to serve as a reminder of an important piece of history in Chautauqua County.

The Chautauqua Region Community Foundation helped Johnston organize two funds for the restoration work. One of the funds is an endowment fund that will be used to provide “sustaining” funds for the preservation of the trolley car after the restoration is fully completed and the display building is built. The other fund, known as the “Trolley No. 93 Non-Endowed/Jim Mitchener Memorial Fund” was organized to provide funding for the restoration of the project. Now that the project is nearly completed Johnston said the fund will be utilized to raise money for a building to house and display the trolley car.

“Currently this fund is around $12,000 with the recent addition of $2,600 from the 2022 Chautauqua Region Vintage Book and Paper Show fundraiser event,” he said. “This is to be a yearly event and is scheduled for the first Saturday of August every year.”

The 2023 Chautauqua Region Vintage Book and Paper Show will be held Saturday August 5 at the Chautauqua Suites in Mayville.

Donations to the trolley project can be made online at the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation website (https://www.crcfonline.org) or by contacting 716-661-3390.

Johnston said a “very special thank you” goes to the Lou and Rodney Anderson family, Ideal Coatings owners, who provided space for No. 93 in a building when the project was forced to vacate the train station in Jamestown.

“There is no telling where we would have ended up without their generosity,” he said.

As the project nears completion, Johnston said the project works will “keep plugging away” while he works to gather support from the community for a permanent location for the trolley car. Johnston added that anyone interested in seeing the trolley can contact him at 716-338-5051 or visit jamestowntrolley.org.