Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Co. - Voting Trust Certificate - Stock Certificate
Inv# RS5406 Stock
New York
Preferred Stock; Voting Trust Certificate printed by Goes. Large size measures 13" x 10".
The Omaha and Council Bluffs Railway and Bridge Company, known as O&CB, was incorporated in 1886 in order to connect Omaha, Nebraska with Council Bluffs, Iowa over the Missouri River. With a sanctioned monopoly over streetcar service in the two cities, the O&CB was among the earliest major electric street railway systems in the nation, and was one of the last streetcar operators in the U.S., making its last run in 1955. The predecessor of the O&CB was the Omaha Horse Railway Company, which was incorporated by an act of the Nebraska Legislature in 1867. Electric streetcar service in Omaha is said to be the outgrowth of the 1887 Omaha Motor Railway, which was formed when the Omaha Horse Railway and the Omaha Cable Tramway Company were consolidated under the leadership of Samuel D. Mercer. George F. Wright, builder of the 1868 Council Bluffs Street Railway company, organized the Omaha and Council Bluffs Railway and Bridge Company in 1886, along with Frank Murphy and Guy C. Barton of Omaha and John T. Stewart, Thomas J. Evans and George F. Wright of Council Bluffs. Majority stockholders included Marshall Field of Chicago and U.S. Senator Joseph Millard of Nebraska, and officials from the American Smelting Company. The last horse car route in the city ceased operation in June 1895.
The O&CB's proposal for a combined wagon and railway bridge over the Missouri River was accepted by United States Congress and the Secretary of War in 1887. This led to the construction of the Douglas Street Bridge, which was later known as the Ak-Sar-Ben Bridge. The bridge was opened to traffic on October 30, 1888. After the construction of the bridge, O&CB laid out streetcar lines throughout Omaha and its suburbs, including South Omaha, Benson, Dundee, and Florence. In 1888 Wright was elected Secretary of the company, and the O&CB built the first electric street railway line ever constructed in Iowa or Nebraska. In 1898 the Omaha Street Railway, later acquired by the O&CB, ordered new cars, repaired and refurbished older cars, and allocated $100,000 for improvements to the streetcar system in anticipation of providing to and from Omaha's Trans-Mississippi Exposition. This increased the capacity of the company's power plant at 20th and Nicholas Streets. By 1902 all of the electric-powered railways in Omaha were consolidated in the O&CB. The company was sold to a New York City-based syndicate for $4,000,000 that year, with the syndicate taking control of all stock.
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
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