Around 1900, every city wanted the interurban to come to town. Offering what was then sleek, fast, and quiet electric intercity passenger trains, steam railroads shook in fear as their once profitable passenger business dried away.

Oregon was no different. In the largest city in the state, the Portland Railway Light & Power Company built an extensive East-side suburban system. On the West-side, the Oregon Electric ran lines to Salem and Eugene, as well as to Hillsboro and Forest Grove. The United Railways, perennially late and shifty, built a massive mountain grade railroad north of town, tapping the upper Tualatin Valley, before it fell into control of the OE. And everywhere, there were trollies, in big towns as well as small ones. So much traffic was being lost by steam roads to their electric cousins that the giant Southern Pacific company, whose octopus had until then a virtual monopoly on Willamette Valley traffic, started electrifying it's routes just a few years later.

The story would not be so good for the interurbans, though: by the first World War, their traffic was already falling into the red due to Henry Ford's pernicious invention. It would be nearly eighty years before population growth would warrant anything similar to be built again, and even then, the extent of modern systems such as TriMet's MAX light rail is but a shadow of what the PRL&P, much less all the interurbans, ran at their peak.

To keep the interurbans running, the lines had to be supplied with power. Companies relied on systems of high-tension transmission lines, feeding local substations. These facilities would then step down the voltage to the 600, 900, or 1200 volt range, and distribute them to trains in their block via overhead trolley wire. Since weather resistant electronics were practically unknown then, most of the equipment of the substations had to be protected inside structures, usually fireproof buildings built of heavy concrete. While a few have been lost to development and time, many of these structures remain today, reminders of a different era in Oregon, when you could ride the electrics down the valley every day.  

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