calsfoundation@cals.org
July 17, 2010
Wiley Jones, a former slave, received the franchise to a mule-driven streetcar line in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in 1886, becoming one of the first African Americans in the nation to operate such a line. The streetcar is shown here circa 1890. Merged with the Citizens Street Railway in the late 1890s, it later became electric and was purchased by the city. Today, the line is known as Pine Bluff Transit.