Henry Casebolt's Elevated Railroad
Henry Casebolt's (Caseholt) Elevated Railroad / Overhead line, 1887 (4 months)
The Piedmonter, 1957
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MR. CASEBOLT'S OVERHEAD CABLE CAR on Moraga Avenue between Bonita and Highland Avenues. This was an experimental narrow gauge electric car designed to supplant the cable car and was used for a time near the high end of Moraga because it was the steepest part of the cable car run. Behind Driver Casebolt whose innovation was shortlived, is Montgomery Howe in the top hat and beside him is Walter Blair, Piedmont's first resident. At the rear, wearing a straw hat, is Mark Requa. The other men are unidentified and solemn as well they might be for both Casebolt and Howe went broke trying to finance an East Bay transportation system. The young lad at the left is Charles Miller who became an Oakland realtor. We don't know what ever became of the boy at the right.
The ultimate Victorians of the continental side of San Francisco Bay by Richey, Elinor, Publication date 1970:
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This airy vehicle was Henry Caseholt's experimental overhead cable car that ran for four months along Highland Avenue in Piedmont. While the car ran on the tracks of the Consolidated Cable Company, it was pulled by an overhead cable that ran through sheaves attached to posts. But the satisfactory performance of the conventional underground cable coupled with feeling against unsightly overhead posts made it impossible for Caseholt to find a backer. He is pictured at the controls, and Mark Requa, one of the line's owners, is pictured in background in straw hat. For a thirteen-year period, beginning in 1886, Oakland had cable car service equal to San Francisco's. The cables kept spinning until 1899, when the lines were converted to electricity. (Albert Norman collection)
The San Francisco Examiner - Wed - Jul. 13, 1887
The cable car book by Smallwood, Charles A., Publication date 1980:
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Passersby often stopped and helped to turn the carriage, establishing a precedent for the activity at cable car turntables of today. Also, in the hope of overcoming some of the maintenance problems created by a system the arteries of which lay underground, Casebolt conceived the plan of placing the cables overhead. The result was an odd-looking model which actually ran for four months across the bay in the Piedmont hills. On the roof of the car was an elaborate. Art Nouveau device that grasped at cables that ran through brackets supported at roof level on lamp posts. The idea was not unlike the idea behind modern-day electric streetcars, but at the time all those posts, poles and overhead wires were deemed unsightly, and Casebolt could get no backing for his plan. He went on to design improvements in the grip mechanism as used by Hallidie, and to utilize the refinements in his own system.
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Cable car carnival by Beebe, Lucius, 1902-1966, Publication date 1951:
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San Francisco’s versatile blacksmith, Henry Casebolt, is known to posterity as the inventor of the balloon car as well as the lever-operated grip still in use on San Francisco’s cable cars. He is less well remembered, however, for “Casebolt’s Elevated Cable for Rapid Transit.” This remarkable vehicle was actually placed in operation for four months at Piedmont Hills, but the satisfactory performance of the more conventional underground cables coupled with the then growing movement for the elimination of unsightly lamp posts, telegraph poles and such made it impossible for the inventor to find a backer and the device was never placed in large scale operation. It consisted of an ordinary four wheel car body with an arrangement on the roof suggestive of the underpinnings of an old-fashioned sewing machine. At its apex was an enlarged pair of blacksmith’s tongs which, when operated by the gripman, clamped onto an overhead cable that ran through sheaves attached to a lamp post. With Case- bolt at the controls and a group of friends joining him for the joyride the experimental car is shown in this rare photograph from the collection of Gilbert Kneiss of the Western Pacific Railroad.
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In 1887, Henry Casebolt, builder of the Sutter Street Railway built an experimental line in Piedmont's Blair Park to demonstrate an overhead cable system. He hoped to sell it to the management of the Consolidated Piedmont Cable Company. They were not interested.
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Casebolt's idea was that not having to lay an expensive conduit under the street would save money. In this system, the cable would run on pulleys attached to cross arms on poles along the line. In the accompanying photograph, the grip sits atop the ornate metal structure, which reminds me of the legs under my grandmother's sewing machine. One of the poles is dimly visible in the background. In larger and clearer copies of the photograph, one can read the legend "H Casebolt's Elevated Railroad" on the dash panel of the car. The grip is essentially a single-jaw side grip. According to historian Roy Graves, the cable and pulleys dripped lubricant on the passengers.
From the May, 1895 Street Railway Journal, page 312:
Henry Casebolt, one of the pioneers of cable railways, was born in Virginia in 1816, and moved to California in 1852. He was an incorporator of the Front Street, Mission Street & Ocean Railway Company, which was chartered in 1873. This was one of the earliest lines in San Francisco, and the predecessor of the Sutter Street Railway Company.
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As soon as the cable had proved successful on the Clay Street line Mr. Casebolt determined to introduce his system on the Sutter Street line, and planned and engineered the entire work. In the course of this work he invented a number of appliances which brought about marked economy. For these improvements he took out a number of patents.
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Mr. Casebolt died September 23, 1892.
The Marysville Appeal - July 16, 1887:
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Twenty years ago General G. T. Beauregard invented a cable-road system with the cable hanging overhead. He failed to perfect a grip, and the patent expired some two years since.
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Now Walter Blair, of the Broadway and Piedmont Street-car Line has taken hold of the matter. Henry Casebolt, the veteran cable-road inventor, has perfected a grip, and an experimental section of the road is being erected on the Piedmont bills, in order to test its efaciency. It will be run on an incline, a level and a curve, and, if a success, will be introduced on several of the suburban lines controlled by Mr. Blair.
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The cost of such a cable road as compared with that of an underground cable is as 11 is to 1,000-90 Mr. Blair says.
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Oakland Tribune - July 12, 1887:
"Some of you said that I would bring a cable road from the Fast in my carpet bag," said Walter Blair to a Tribune man this morning. "Well, I did not bring any back with me, but a cable road passed through the streets yesterday on two drays and went out to the Piedmont hills, and none of you saw it, or if you did, you did not know what it. was," and the genial railroad man smiled as though he bad a grip in his hand and was going ten miles an hour over the foothills.to Blair's Park.
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THE CASEBOLT GRIP.
"Henry Casebolt of San Francisco, the old car builder, has invented a grip and he and I are going to see if it will work. Mr. Casebolt really invented the grip for the Sutter street road and the Market street road in San Francisco.
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"Henry Casebolt of San Francisco, the old car builder, has invented a grip and he and I are going to see if it will work. Mr. Casebolt really invented the grip for the Sutter street road and the Market street road in San Francisco—the best grips ever made. The Hallidie system is used on these roads, and the Union street lines. Mr. Casebolt has had a great deal of experience in street railroads and their construction and appliances. He has invented a grip for an overhanging cable. The grip is somewhat similar in some respects to the grip on the Market street line. I have taken 1000 feet of cable and an engine and pulleys, and they are now out in the Piedmont hills. To-day I shall order the lumber, and soon we shall have an experimental road. The cable is suspended from arches above the cars, and the grip passes through the top of the cars. A dummy will be built for use on the experimental road. If successful the overhanging cable will be the best motor for suburban roads."
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APPLICATION IN CITY STREETS.
"Can it be operated in the streets of a city?"
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"We have yet to learn. If it can be successfully operated in the suburbs, I think the apparatus can be made sightly and can be applied to use in the city streets. Anyhow it could be used with great advantage on New Broadway to Berkeley and on the Piedmont road. The expense of construction is very small. The cost of such a road is to the cost of a cable road of which the cable is underground as 110 is to 10,000."
Mr. Blair said that the experimental road will be built immediately. It will twist around curves to test the possibilities of the new Casebolt grip, and it will make an ascent and will run on level ground. If the apparatus proves successful it will be applied to the Piedmont road and also will be used upon the new Broadway road, for which Mr. Blair has a franchise.
The sudden end after Walter Blair's death
San Francisco Chronicle - April 12, 1888:​
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WALTER BLAIR'S ESTATE.
A Cable-Railroad That Was Contemplated by the Deceased.
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Henry Casebolt, the cable railroad builder, was seen yesterday by a CHRONICLE reporter on an incoming ferry-boat.
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"I am just returning from Alameda county where I have been for some days acting with others as a joint appraiser of the estate of my late friend, Walter Blair, who recently died in Oakland quite suddenly," said Mr. Casebolt. "As appraisers we found the estate worth $241,211.28, consisting of San Francisco Dock Company stock, Wentworth Boot and Shoe Company stock, Oakland street-car interests, tracts of land round about Piedmont and what is known as the Blethen ranch, near Mills college.
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"If Mr. Blair had not died I would have been at work by this time in constructing for him my new elevated cable railroad to run from the junction of Piedmont road and Mountain View Cemetery avenue to Piedmont springs, a distance of about one and a half miles. This arrangement Mr. Blair and myself had entered into."​
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Oakland Tribune - August 10, 1888:
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It is said that Henry Casebolt will build one of his overhead cables for a company in Salt Lake City. This is the system that was experimented with at Piedmont some months ago. The experiments were rudely disturbed by the death of Walter Blair.
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