100-year-old trolley scheduled for a long-term stop at Bellingham’s Old Town district
A restored 1919 trolley, representing a streetcar line that once served Bellingham and several other Northwest cities, was installed for display in Old Town this week.
Brad Parberry, a member of the family that owned recycling facilities near the waterfront, had the trolley returned to its original condition and placed next to the Helen Loggie Museum of Art at Holly and E streets.
The trolley will be part of the museum, along with a 10-foot chipping wheel from the old Georgia-Pacific paper mill, in the new Courthouse Plaza. It’s so-named because The Loggie is in the old Territorial Courthouse. The 1858 building is the oldest brick structure in Washington state.
Having sold their industrial facilities, the Parberrys are focused on housing and other development in the historic Old Town section west of downtown Bellingham. The Courthouse Plaza is a major step, Parberry told The Bellingham Herald in a phone interview from his office in San Francisco.
“For me, it’s about beautifying this area. I’d like to make it shine like it used to,” Parberry said.
Tom and Vince Mendenhall of Arlington made the trolley appear as it did in its heyday, when passengers would ride around downtown.
Their company, Historical Railway Restoration, preserves cabooses, locomotives and train cars. They found and restored what’s called a Birney Safety Car, a lightweight streetcar with only a driver — called a “motorman” — and no conductor.
According to the city of Bellingham website, a system of trolley lines operated on Holly Street-Eldridge Avenue, East North Street-Cornwall Avenue, Kentucky Street-Woburn Street-Electric Avenue, Harris-Cowgill avenues, and Monroe, G, Girard and Ellsworth streets in the Columbia and Lettered Streets neighborhoods.
Their tracks are still visible in the pavement of roads in Bellingham and Fairhaven.
“It’s got a historical significance to the area. It actually operated originally in Tacoma, but (the engineering firm) Stone & Webster owned the Tacoma, the Seattle, the Everett and the Bellingham operations when this operated, so this car could easily have been from Bellingham,” Vince told The Herald as he watched the trolley loaded onto a flatbed truck, moved to the plaza, and then lowered into place with a forklift.
Vince’s dad, Tom Mendenhall, focused on the wood trim, seats and windows.
“I can’t really describe what I do — I just do it. Give me a piece of wood from a streetcar and I’ll fix it,” Tom said.
This car was located in a hay barn near Snohomish , Parberry said.
Members of the public will be able to see inside the streetcar about mid-September, once the Courthouse Plaza is complete and landscaping is added, he said. One side of the trolley’s interior has original seating, and the other side will have historic Bellingham photos.
This story was originally published August 2, 2024 at 10:41 AM.
