Cherrelyn Horse Car
Up by horse, down by gravity. In the late 1800s in present-day Englewood, electric streetcars stopped near Hampden and South Broadway. A mile further at the top of a hill, developers were turning farmland into a place called Cherrelyn. You could walk there, or step onto a horse-drawn trolley for the ascent. But hold on, because at the top, the horse came aboard to ride back down again. A 15-minute journey there became a 5-minute journey back. The speed reportedly made some passengers dizzy.
Over 20 years a hearty herd made the roundtrip day after day: Quickstep, Curley, Dobbin. Old Dick died of a broken heart, they say, weeks after the line was discontinued in 1910. Decades later the last horse-car was refurbished and given to the city that absorbed Cherrelyn. You see it today, standing still at Englewood Civic Center, a trolley with a life-size horse riding in back — the "Gravity & Bronco Railroad."
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