Trolleyville has a rich and colorful history, rooted in a deep love for electric railcars and a desire to preserve this valuable heritage. There are few such stories as poignant as the story of Gerald E. Brookins and his love for the electric streetcar.

A major change took place on the Cleveland scene at the end of January 1954. It was really a death, so a few appropriate ceremonies were held, pictures were taken, and some tears were shed. Then life went on. And so did Cleveland traffic — but the city's streets would never be the same again, because what happened on those January days was the death of the Cleveland trolley system.

Gerald E. Brookins, a mobile home park developer, was in the mourning party of those final days. He rode the last cars and he remembered — remembered the hundreds of streetcars and big interurbans he used to ride in his youth. He remembered that it was on a trolley that he met this beautiful girl, Alice Cawrse, whose father was for a while a motorman himself. Later, the romance blossomed and they were married. In November 1982, two months before Gerald's death, they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

So, Brookins rode and remembered on those cold January days of 1954. He took hundreds of pictures of those final streetcar runs down Madison Avenue, to and from Public Square — the Ceremonial last rides.

Now, over forty years later, many people still lament the passing of the electric trolley, especially with high gas prices, diesel fumes from busses adding to urban pollution and traffic congestion.

Soon after that January day in 1954, Brookins began to wonder, "Will we ever see another trolley again? What will happen to those big beauties, and to their sisters, the sleek, fast interurbans?"

He soon found out what was going to happen to them — the scrap heap! He knew he couldn't let that happen, to just watch them disappear from the earth forever like dinosaurs. So he scanned the papers for details and made some inquiries. Before long he bought, for scrap prices, his first trolleys, cars from the Shaker Line. These were beautiful interurbans, originally built for the Fox River Line between the cities of Aurora and Elgin in Illinois.

But now, what to do with them?

At that time, the mobile home community, Columbia Park in Olmsted Township, still had fewer than 100 units, so Brookins had the cars shipped there, leaving them to stand in open fields.

And they sat there for quite some time, with no wires to feed them juice, no tracks to roll on. So Brookins began thinking and dreaming again, scanning more newspapers, making more inquiries. In the late 1950's he learned that the Cleveland Transit System was taking down the trolley poles and overhead wire from its former Clifton Boulevard line. He contacted company officials and purchased enough of this material to build two miles of trolley line, running through his yet-to-be-developed mobile home park.

Trolleyville did not develop quickly, but as the months rolled by, Brookins acquired more streetcars and interurbans and, more importantly, he also acquired professional assistance and materials. Although he could not completely envision the final result, he vowed that this "museum" was not going to be small-time or amateurish. He wanted professionalism in everything he did.

If you are interested in helping us keep the Trolleyville collection together, you can volunteer your time or resources or donate to our non-profit museum. You may also contact us for more information.

For more information about how you can help, please visit our contact page or call (216) 566-0100.