The Cheyenne Daily Leader

USES FOR OLD STREET CARS
A
Boston Man Starts a Movement Which
Is Unlimited as to Possibilities.

While the huge traction corporation
which has gridironed the city with trolley
wires was wondering if it would not
be the cheapest way to take the old cars
out by the shipload and dump them in
some place where they would not interfere
with navigation a citizen stepped
in and bid $6 for them. His first
move after getting the cars was to put
one in the back yard of a friend and to
tell the children that they might use it
for a playhouse. The children were in
ecstasies and sat up nights to use the
car. Other children came and peered
through the pickets of the fence, and
went home and teased for a street car.
The demand was created, and soon the
purveyor of broken down street cars did
a rushing business.

Mothers found they could put their
small children inside, and shutting the
doors leave them with a feeling of security.
It was the cheapest way, too,
in many cases to provide shade. The
car could be secured for $5 apiece, and
the first outlay was the last. So cars
were dragged by horses into back yards,
and the trucks removed from under
them, and the brakes taken off. Now
that the new industry has been started
it is surprising how many uses are being
found for those ancient conveyances.
At first they were thought of only as
playhouses.

One purchaser turns his new acquisition
into a henhouse. Another, who is
a contractor, pays his men every Saturday
night from the door of the old car.
One man fixed his up as a carpenter
shop for his boy, and one enterprising
old woman in Cambridge made an offer
for ten cars. Her idea was to wheel
them down to the seashore and convert
them into cottages and bathhouses, shifting
their position with the tide. Her ingenious
scheme, however, was thwarted
by the refusal of the owners of the beach
to sell her land for the purpose. Now
that the ball has been set rolling next
summer may see the introduction of
"house cars for the campers out, picnickers
and excursionists."—Boston
Transcript.