In 1834 Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith from Brandon, Vermont, U.S., built a small battery-powered electric motor and used it to operate a small car on a short section of track.

When did trolleys become popular?

South Bend, Indiana, claims the first electric streetcar in the United States, with a line that opened in 1882. Streetcars were widely popular in the US in the early 1900s, according to the Smithsonian Institution, covering 45,000 miles and carrying millions by 1917.

Who invented the first trolley?

In the mid-1880s, the electric streetcar or trolley was invented in the United States by American engineer and inventor Frank Julian Sprague (1857–1934). An overhead electric wire provided the power and was capable of moving several cars at once.