Like many cities at the beginning of the 20th century, Bartlesville had an electrical interurban railway/street car operation. The original route of the railway was between Bartlesville, including service to the west side lead smelters area, and Dewey to the north. Long range plans for expansion of this route to the towns of Copan and Nowata never materialized. The operation began in 1908 and continued through to 1920. The terminal building was located at 4th Street and Comanche Avenue with the street cars running in both directions from the terminal building. The line ran east across the Caney River to Dewey through Tuxedo. It ran west on 4th Street to Cherokee Avenue, north on Cherokee Avenue to Frank Phillips Blvd., west on Frank Phillips Blvd. to Mound Street (which is now Sunset Blvd.) then south to the smelters. The south branch started at 4th Street and Wyandotte and ran south on Wyandotte to 9th Street, west on 9th Street to Delaware Avenue, south on Delaware Avenue to 13th Street, west on 13th Street to Keeler Avenue, north on Keeler Avenue to 8th Street, east on 8th Street to Dewey Avenue, north on Dewey Avenue to Frank Phillips Blvd. This basically clockwise loop was the main line. When the railway stopped service in 1920, the tracks were left in place and eventually paved over. Traces of the old paved over tracks can be noticed with the cracks in the 8th Street surface at both the Dewey Avenue and Keeler Avenue intersections respectively. The cracks in the pavement outline the radius of the tracks as they turned to and from 8th Street.
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Bartlesville Interurban Railway
throughout Downtown and surrounding