The Metropolitan's lines were originally operated by the West Side Construction Company, which had been responsible for constructing them, and would be transferred to the Metropolitan on October 6, 1896.[5] The backers and officers of the two companies were largely identical, however, so this transfer of ownership was nominal.[3][5] The expenses incurred in constructing the Metropolitan's vast trackage would catch up to the company, which entered receivership in 1897; the similarly named Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway Company was organized in January 1899 and assumed operations on February 3 of that year.[6]
The interurban Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway (AE&C) opened in 1902 and began using the Garfield Park branch in 1905.
Trains for the AE&C overtook "L" trains at Marshfield Junction, but were so fast that they caught up with other "L" trains around St. Louis.[7] Originally, they were compelled to follow these trains at low speed for the next two miles (3.2 km) to 52nd Avenue, or the same distance to Marshfield for eastbound trains.[8] This proved unsatisfactory, so a series of diamond interlockings, two at either side of the station, were installed to allow AE&C trains to directly pass "L" trains at the station. These interlockings were built by the Metropolitan, and were opened by August 1911.[9]
The Metropolitan, along with the other companies operating "L" lines in Chicago, became a part of the Chicago Elevated Railways (CER) trust on July 1, 1911.[10] CER acted as a de factoholding company for the "L" – unifying its operations, instituting the same management across the companies, and instituting free transfers between the lines starting in 1913 – but kept the underlying companies intact.[11] This continued until the companies were formally merged into the single Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT), which assumed operations on January 9, 1924; the former Metropolitan was designated the Metropolitan Division of the CRT for administrative purposes.[12] Although municipal ownership of transit had been a hotly-contested issue for half a century, the publicly owned Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would not be created until 1945,[13] or assume operation of the "L" until October 1, 1947.[14]
The station was located at 614 South St. Louis Avenue.[15] With the installation of the interlockings, a tower was placed on the eastern half of the southern, eastbound platform. The interlockings themselves were mechanical and had number 7 frogs.[8]
Ridership
The Garfield Park branch last recorded individual station ridership statistics in 1948. In that year, St. Louis served 497,085 passengers, a 13.77 percent decline from the 576,453 passengers it had served in 1947.[16] Its 1948 performance made it the 95th-most ridden of the 223 "L" stations that were at least partially-staffed at the beginning of the year, whereas in 1947 it had been the 87th-busiest of 222 such stations.[a][20]
Notes
^Several stations on the Niles Center and Westchester branches were permanently unstaffed and thus did not collect ridership statistics.[17] Several stations closed on the "L" during 1948.[18]Exchange station on the Stock Yards branch discontinued statistics after 1946, but adjacent Racine station began collecting them in 1948.[19]
^Chicago Transit Authority (April 5, 1948). "New Lake Street All-Express "L" Service". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 107, no. 82. p. 7. Archived from the original on February 13, 2022. Retrieved February 18, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
CTA Rail Entrance, Annual Traffic, 1900–1979 (Report). Chicago: Chicago Transit Authority. October 1, 1979.
Moffat, Bruce G. (1995). The "L": The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit System, 1888–1932. Chicago: Central Electric Railfans' Association. ISBN0-915348-30-6.
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