Cable Car Day

Cable Car Day is January 17th

On January 17th, 1871, Andrew Smith Hallidie received a patent for the first cable car. Hallidie, a San Francisco resident, reportedly watched 5 horses slip and fall to their deaths while pulling a horse-drawn streetcar up one of the cities steep hills. Concerned for the horses, he decided their must be a better way. Thus he invented the cable car. The first cable car, the Clay Street Hill Railway, was built soon after. Today cable cars are a well-known symbol of San Francisco and have been built in cities all over the world!