The Pioneer Route and Electric Railways of Northeast Ohio: The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus Railway System

The Pioneer Route and Electric Railways of Northeast Ohio presents mass transit in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century urban United States from a business history perspective. Starting in the 1890s, a revolution in transportation—interurbans—emerged from Ohio's largest cities and, within a single decade, extended throughout the surrounding countryside. These systems of interconnecting electric railways were made possible by a favorable political and business culture and fed by an insatiable demand. Driven by a growing population and the desire for efficient transportation services, nascent business organizations acquired the cash, approval of local governments, and essential support of the incipient electrical goods manufacturing industry. In all of this, Ohio would be the leader. Ohio's people, businesses, and resources cultivated the emergence of the electric railway industry to a scale unsurpassed elsewhere in the US.

The rise and fall of one of its' largest systems, the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus Railway, demonstrates how this marvel of transportation engineering and business acumen developed in Ohio and the effect it had on the Cleveland metropolitan region. Known originally as the Pioneer Route, the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus Railway was constructed by a group of investors, bankers, promoters, and industrialists. The CS&C is an ideal example of how an interurban led the way to the development of a modern rural infrastructure in the region.