Detroit Citizens Street Railway stock certificate c1891 (Michigan) 

Detroit MI streetcars. Unusual vignette of the company's incorporation information. Unissued and not cancelled.  Circa 1891. Dated 18__ on the cert.  Approximately 11.5 x 9 inches.

Incorporated in 1891, the Detroit Citizens Street Railway was formed as a successor to the city's original franchise holder, Detroit City Railway.

In 1862, a Syracuse, New York based company forms the Detroit City Railway Company and begins construction of what would be Detroit’s first passenger rail system. Detroit’s first passenger rail system, horse‐drawn trolleys, begins service on Jefferson Avenue on August 3, 1863.

On August 22, 1892 the Detroit Citizens Street Railway succeeds the Detroit City Railway and begins to offer electric powered streetcar service along Jefferson Avenue. Electric streetcars replace the horse‐drawn trolley on Woodward and Mack by the end of the year.  In 1895, 1895, due to the improved electric power, streetcar service expands into the suburbs.

Between the years 1863 and 1900 approximately twenty-nine streetcar companies had operated either horse-drawn or electric powered streetcars along streets in and around the city of Detroit. By the year 1897, there were only three city companies remaining. The largest and oldest of the companies -- the Detroit Citizens Street Railway.

The Detroit Citizens Street Railway, the Detroit Electric Railway, the Detroit, Fort Wayne and Belle Isle Railway, and the Detroit Suburban Railway were all to be absorbed into the newly formed Detroit United Railway (DUR) in 1900. The DUR continued to expand into the early 1920s through new construction and the acquisition of smaller concerns. After the DUR acquired the Detroit-Jackson line in 1907, it operated more than 400 miles of interurban lines and 187 miles of street city street railway lines. In 1922, The Detroit United Railway became the municipal Department of Street Railways (DSR).

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