Homemade Transfer War

In 1902, Rogers Parkers were being forced to pay additional fares to ride the streetcar operated on Clark Street by the Chicago Union Traction Company (CUT) whenever their trip went south of Graceland Avenue (now Irving Park Road. It wasn’t unusual for suburban riders to pay extra, but, Rogers Park had been a part of the City of Chicago for nine years. They were NOT suburbanites any longer; they were Chicagoans, and they resented being asked to pay extra to ride within the city limits.

On March 19, 1902, Superior Court Judge Farlin Quigley Ball (1838-1917) ruled that the five-cent fare law of 1897 was still valid. This law said that a traction company could not charge any additional fare for travel within the city limits of Chicago, regardless of where the trip began or ended.

This did not stop the practice.

Things finally ended up in the lap of the Illinois Supreme Court. The decision, itself, was the longest ever handed down by the state’s highest court to that time. Prepared by Justice B.D. Magruder, it held that the City had the right to regulate the streetcar service and fares. Ironically, with this decision, the high court conferred upon the city a right which the Illinois State Legislature had already extended in the first place.

Things kept on until October 26, when William Wirt Gurley (1851-1923), the attorney for the traction company, announced: “We will comply with the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court. It is the end of the transfer fight.”