Wells Street Terminal was a stub-end
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
terminal on the
'L' in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, located at Wells Street between Jackson Boulevard and Van Buren Street. The terminal was in operation from 1904 to 1953.
History
The Fifth Avenue Terminal (as it was originally known) was built by the
Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad
The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad (known as the ''Met'' or ''Polly "L"'') was the third elevated rapid transit line to be built in Chicago, Illinois and was the first of Chicago’s elevated lines to be electrically powered. The lin ...
in 1904 to establish a terminal for rush hour elevated train traffic. Along with Chicago's other elevated railroad operators, the Metropolitan operated most of its trains on the
Loop elevated
The Loop (historically Union Loop) is the long circuit of elevated rail that forms the hub of the Chicago "L" system in the United States. As of 2012, the branch has served 74,651 passengers every weekday. The Loop is so named because the eleva ...
through Chicago's central business district. However, the tracks of the Loop 'L' were operating at capacity during rush hours, and could not handle the additional train traffic needed to satisfy demand. Accordingly, the Metropolitan ran some of its rush hour services to Wells Street Terminal instead of circling the Loop. Similar terminals were used by the other elevated railroad operators of Chicago, but the Metropolitan's Wells Street Terminal had the advantage of being directly adjacent to the Loop "L" tracks on Wells Street and even had a transfer bridge to the
Quincy Street station on the Loop 'L'.
The Metropolitan's services included trains operating on its
Garfield Park main line, the Douglas Park branch, and the Logan Square and
Humboldt Park branch. These lines are ancestors of
Chicago Transit Authority
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its surrounding suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago 'L' and CTA bus service. In , the system had a ridership of , o ...
's present-day
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
and
Pink Line services, though only small remnants of the original lines remain as part of today's Blue Line route.
In 1905, the Metropolitan's elevated trains at the terminal were joined by the
interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...
trains of the
Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway. The terminal was the only downtown facility used by the interurban, which did not use the Loop.
![2010-07-12 3000x2000 chicago franklin street substation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/2010-07-12_3000x2000_chicago_franklin_street_substation.jpg)
Wells Street Terminal consisted of four stub-end tracks using two island platforms and in 1907, over 100 rush-hour trains used the facility.
With the completion of the
Milwaukee-Dearborn subway in 1951, Logan Square trains were rerouted into the subway, terminating at the temporary terminal
LaSalle/Congress subway station. With changing traffic patterns and increasing use of automobiles resulting in lower train frequencies, CTA was able to end 'L' service to the terminal late the same year.
After the CTA took over 'L' operations after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, service to the Wells Street Terminal was decreased as operations were revised. In 1948, Humboldt Park branch service was cut back to
Damen at all hours except during
rush hour
A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...
, when the trains served Wells Street Terminal. At the same time, all Logan Square trains were routed onto the Loop, leaving only Humboldt trains and certain Garfield and Douglas runs serving Wells. On February 25, 1951, all Milwaukee (Logan Square) trains were rerouted into the new Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway, with all Humboldt service to a shuttle operation to Damen. Later that year, on December 9, Garfield and Douglas service was revised and those services were also withdrawn from Well Street Terminal,
thus ending all 'L' service to the station.
The Chicago Aurora and Elgin continued to use the terminal, though a problem loomed as plans for a new superhighway — the
Congress Street Expressway — called for the road to be built on the route of Garfield Park 'L', necessitating the demolition of the elevated structure. Though the plans included a new rapid transit rail line in the median strip of the new highway, connecting with the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway, and though a temporary right-of-way was established to allow rail service to continue during construction, a number of operational and political obstacles led to the interurban deciding to change their service to the outer terminal of the elevated line at Des Plaines Avenue in
Forest Park
A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment.
Examples Chile
* Forest Park, Santiago
China
*Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai
* Mufushan National Fores ...
. Interurban riders therefore had to change trains to or from CTA trains at the
Forest Park station to continue their rides after September 20, 1953.
This change brought an end to the use of Wells Street Terminal. The building was razed in 1955 and two of the terminal tracks connected to the Loop 'L' as a temporary connection, but with the completion of the expressway and new Congress rapid transit line on June 22, 1958, the Garfield Park 'L' came to an end and Congress trains were routed via the subway. The connecting tracks at the terminal's former location were removed in 1964.
References
External links
Wells Street Terminal article on chicago-l.org
{{CA&E, Main=y
Railway stations in Chicago
Chicago "L" terminal stations
Former Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin stations
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1904
Railway stations closed in 1953
1904 establishments in Illinois
1953 disestablishments in Illinois
Defunct Chicago "L" stations