Basil Smith (British, B. 1925) "San Francisco Cable Car" Signed lower left. Original Mixed Media painting on Hot Press Illustration Board.

Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation.

This painting is the original painting which was published on the Fleetwood First Day Combination Cover for the U.S. Steetcar stamps issued October 8, 1983.

The cable car was invented by an Englishman named Andrew S. Hallidie. While he was in San Francisco, he witnessed a terrible carriage accident -- caused by the steep hills -- and vowed to find a way to avoid further calamities. He devised a system of continuous running cables under the pavement, which could be used to pull a streetcar along the rails. The cable car could be stopped by simply detaching it from the cable and setting the brake. On the first trial run, the workmen who had been assigned to ride and operate the cable car took a hard look at the slopes they had to climb -- the gradient sometimes approached twenty degrees -- and they all resigned on the spot! So Hallidie -- confident of his invention -- hopped on and made a flawless run, starting and stopping on the steep hills several times. Thus, San Francisco became the first city in the world to have a cable car system, and soon after this initial success in San Francisco, cable cars became quite common and spread to other towns across the United States. The cable car and other forms of streetcars -- like the "Bobtail" horsecar of Sulphur Rock and the St. Charles streetcar of New Orleans -- helped to speed the urban growth of America.

Image Size: 7 x 6 in.
Overall Size: 10 x 9 in.
Unframed.
(B08202)

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10 x 9 in