The Fenelon Place elevator is described as the world's shortest, steepest scenic railway, 296 feet in length, elevating passengers 189 feet from Fourth Street to Fenelon Place in Dubuque, a city of eastern Iowa on the Mississippi River.J. K. Graves, a former mayor and former State Senator, lived on top of the bluffs and worked at the bottom.
Unfortunately, he had to spend half an hour driving his horse and buggy round the bluff to get to the top and another half an hour to return downtown.
As a traveler he had seen incline railways in Europe and decided that a cable car would solve his problem. John Bell, a local engineer, was hired to design and to build a one-car cable modeled after those in the Alps.
The Fenelon Place Elevator.
1 comment(s):
There are a pair of inclines in Pittsburgh that are similar to this:
Monongahela Incline
Duquesne Incline
I've ridden the Monongahela Incline. View is amazing at the top; you are eye level with the tops of the buildings.
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