To commemorate the anniversary, Bob Johnston, a local volunteer who has spent more than 20 years restoring Trolley Car 93, is hosting a poster project to fill advertising poster spaces that were part of the trolley car when it first hit the streets of Jamestown.

Unlike replicas people may have seen on the road over the past few decades, Trolley Car 93 actually rode on railroad tracks in the street getting traction motor electricity from overhead wires via a trolley wheel and pole. For more information on the project, visit jamestowntrolley.org to learn about and see the progress of the trolley project and also to learn more about one of Johnston’s 100th anniversary fundraising ideas – the advertising poster promotion.

Early trolley cars and buses displayed advertising signs above the passenger seats that promoted various products and services of the day. Trolley #93, in its heyday, provided room for 18 separate advertising posters.

It would be nice to add a little local color to the car’s interior and try to bring back a bit of this old time practice, something extra to check out during the times we have visitors /groups wanting to see the trolley,” Johnston said.

A photo provided by the Fenton Center shows Trolley Car 93 when it was in service.

Johnston plans to offer a poster space to area advertisers willing to support the preservation and display of this last area survivor with a donation. Plans are in motion that will provide Trolley #93 with a permanent display area within the next two to three years. A $300 to $500 donation will get a poster spot that will be used in the car upon receipt as well as through to and including the first year that the car “moves in” to its new home. After that, Johnston said, volunteers may rotate signs in and out to make room for new arrivals.

Donors will have to design and provide the poster measuring 11″ x 20″. A sample poster advertising Swell Blend Coffee was made sending a digital image to an image processing/printing company that provides access to its software allowing the company to make a properly sized print of the submitted image file.

Those who want to help can also purchase any of these books, Collecting Chautauqua County New York Postcards, Milk Bottles of Chautauqua County NY and Their Stories, and Early Chautauqua County New York Brewers and Bottlers. Proceeds go into the trolley fund.

For more information on the project, the poster fund raiser or to see #93, please visit the website and/or contact Bob Johnston, project originator, at 716-338-5051 or email park2@netsync.net.

Starting in 1866, Dunkirk, New York, was the first to use horse drawn street cars in Chautauqua County. Early on, Dunkirk was quite the transportation hub for railroads and Great Lakes vessels, so it followed that it was ahead in the streetcar game too. Jamestown, New York, didn’t have its first horse cars until 1884, but got up to speed when they introduced the county’s first electric trolley cars in 1891.

Restoration of Trolley Car 93 began when the trolley was first pulled out of the woods in Dewittville in 1996. Trolley Car 93 is pretty much cosmetically restored, there is still some work to be done on the trucks (the four railroad type wheel assembly that supports the trolley on the rails), but that is waiting on the completion of its final display location. Plans for a display building in conjunction with the Fenton History Center are moving forward, Johnston said in November, while fundraising for the project continues.