Horses and autos

Horses and autos “share” the Lowell streets.

It didn’t always go well . . .

In the years between the appearance of automobiles and other motor vehicles and the disappearance of horses on Lowell’s streets, there were many injurious and sometimes fatal encounters between autos and horse-drawn vehicles. Some of the encounters between autos and horses were direct hits and sometimes the horses were spooked by the new machines and ran wildly down the streets.

The graph above shows how motor vehicles increased in numbers while there were still many horse-drawn vehicles sharing the roads. The graph below shows how dangerous the roads were in the early days of motorized transportation.

Motor-vehicle-related deaths per million vehicle miles traveled (VMT)

and annual VMT, by year – United States, 1925 - 1997

A postcard from the collection of the Chelmsford Historical Society

CE #810 119_Moody_Street_1924-03-31, Lowell City Engineer’s Collection, UMASS Lowell

CE _246.5_Central_at_Merrimack_Street_1917_neg__UML__050, Lowell City Engineer’s Collection, UMASS Lowell

In 1885, according to the City Directory, there were 2,648 horses in the City of Lowell. The first automobile not in a parade drove through the streets of Lowell on April 5, 1899. Thus began about three decades of horses and horseless carriages together transporting their riders through the streets. To this, add electric streetcars and many pedestrians. What could go wrong? Unfortunately the answer is “a lot”.

Below is just a sampling of articles that appeared in the Lowell Sun during those years about horse and auto encounters.