Division was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L"'s Logan Square branch. It existed from 1895 to 1951, when its section of the branch was replaced by the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway. A replacement station was constructed on the subway.

DIVISION   1200N 1700W
Former Chicago 'L' rapid transit station
Typical station on the Metropolitan's double-tracked lines, of which Division was an example
General information
Owned by	Chicago Transit Authority (1947–1951) Chicago Rapid Transit Company (1924–1947) See text before 1924
Line(s)	Logan Square branch
Platforms	2 side platforms
Tracks	2
Construction
Structure type	Elevated
History
Opened	May 6, 1895
Closed	February 25, 1951
Former services
Preceding station Chicago "L" Following station Robey Damen after 1927 toward Logan Square Logan Square branch Chicago toward Marshfield

History

The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad Company was granted a 50-year franchise by the Chicago City Council on April 7, 1892,[1] and began securing right of way shortly thereafter.[2] As designed, the Metropolitan's operations would comprise a main line that went west from downtown to Marshfield, where three branches – one northwest to Logan Square, one due west to Garfield Park, and one southwest to Douglas Park – would diverge and serve various parts of Chicago's west side.[3] A further branch to Humboldt Park would proceed due west from the Logan Square branch just past Robey station.[lower-alpha 1][3][4] Unlike the competing South Side and Lake Street Elevateds, the Metropolitan never used steam traction; although it had originally intended to, and indeed had built much of its structure under the assumption that locomotives would be used,[6] it decided in May 1894 to have electrified tracks instead,[7] making it upon its opening the first electric elevated railroad in the United States.[8] The Metropolitan's tracks on the Logan Square branch were finished by the middle of October 1894, and were powered on in April 1895 for test and inspection runs.[4] The Metropolitan began service at 6 a.m. on Monday, May 6, 1895, between Robey on the Logan Square branch[lower-alpha 1] and Canal on the main line.[9] Eleven stations opened that day, one of which was on Division Street.[9]

The Metropolitan's lines were originally operated by the West Side Construction Company, which had been responsible for constructing them, and would be transferred to the Metropolitan on October 6, 1896.[10] The backers and officers of the two companies were largely identical, however, so this transfer of ownership was nominal.[3][10] The expenses incurred in constructing the Metropolitan's vast trackage would come back to haunt the company, which entered receivership in 1897; the similarly-named Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway Company was organized in January 1899 and assumed operations on February 3 of that year.[11] The new Metropolitan, along with the other companies operating "L" lines in Chicago, became a part of the Chicago Elevated Railways (CER) trust on July 1, 1911.[12] CER acted as a de facto holding company for the "L" – unifying its operations, instituting the same management across the companies, and instituting free transfers between the lines starting in 1913 – but kept the underlying companies intact.[13] This continued until the companies were formally merged into the single Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) in 1924, which assumed operations on January 9; the former Metropolitan was designated the Metropolitan division of the CRT for administrative purposes.[14] Although municipal ownership of transit had been a hotly-contested issue for half a century, the publicly-owned Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would not be created until 1945,[15] or assume operation of the "L" until October 1, 1947.[16]

The CTA instituted major changes on the "L", which was suffering from declining ridership, antiquated infrastructure, and complicated routing. With respect to the lines built by the Metropolitan, it instituted broad changes that had been planned since the late 1930s; the Logan Square branch south of Damen was replaced by the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway, which opened on February 25, 1951. The new subway contains a station on Division Street.[17]

The part of the Logan Square branch put out of service became known as the Paulina Connector, used to connect the surviving parts of the branch with the rest of the "L" system. It continued in non-revenue service; wooden parts from the old stations on the route, including Division, were removed to reduce fire hazards, as were the lowest flights of stairs to deter trespassing. This continued until final demolition occurred sometime in the 1960s.[18]

Station details

Like all stations on the Logan Square branch, Division had a Queen Anne station house with a front bay, made of red pressed brick and a stone sill and foundation. It had two wooden side platforms, each with canopies with an iron frame and corrugated tin hipped roofs.[18]

Operations and connections

When the Division station opened, Division Street had had a downtown-bound horse car service between Mozart Street and Milwaukee Avenue since June 27, 1890; this route included the site of the station.[19] Initially these cars were pulled by cable cars on Milwaukee Avenue, but the route was electrified in 1896.[19] By 1896, this was joined by a local streetcar on Division Street between Mozart and Wells Streets, also serving the station.[20] Sometimes local service was cut back from Wells to Clybourn Avenue due to competition from cable cars, which would not have affected the station.[20] As of 1928, the local service had no owl service, the last westbound car leaving Wells at 12:28 a.m., while the downtown service did, offering thirty-minute car intervals between 1:02 and 5:02 a.m.;[21] during the day, streetcar lines in Chicago typically had intervals of between eight and fifteen minutes per car.[22] The downtown service was closed on Sundays on March 6, 1932, to cut costs.[20] The local service was extended from Wells Street to 21st and State Streets on August 19, 1937; by October 11, local Division cars were through-routed with cars on Van Buren Street about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the south in a U-shaped configuration from downtown.[19] This continued with minor service detours until the CTA replaced the route with buses on February 4, 1951, on which date the downtown route was also abandoned.[19] This bus route was a combination of the old streetcar services and a through-routing between another streetcar line on Division Street, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from Mozart and 2.5 mi (4.0 km) from the station; a bus to combine the two stretches of streetcars on Division was instituted on October 1, 1941, and had replaced the western stretch of track altogether on July 9, 1946.[19]

Notes

References

Works cited

• Borzo, Greg (2007). The Chicago "L". Arcadia. ISBN 9780738551005 – via Google Books.
• Lind, Alan R. (1974). Chicago Surface Lines: An Illustrated History. Park Forest, Illinois: Transport History Press.
• Moffat, Bruce G. (1995). The "L": The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit System, 1888–1932. Chicago: Central Electric Railfans' Association. ISBN 0-915348-30-6.
• "The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad of Chicago". The Street Railway Review. 5: 263–274. January 15, 1895.