span style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast">horsecar and
cable
car lines were constructed in Oakland during the latter half of the 19th
century. The first electric
streetcar set out from Oakland to
Berkeley
in 1891, and other lines were converted and added over the course of the 1890s.
The various streetcar companies operating in Oakland were acquired by
Francis
"Borax" Smith and consolidated into what eventually became
known as the
Key System, the predecessor of today's publicly owned
AC
Transit. In addition to its system of streetcars in the East Bay, the
Key System also operated commuter trains to its own pier and ferry boats to San
Francisco, in competition with the Southern Pacific. Upon completion of the
Bay
Bridge, both companies ran their commuter trains on the south side of
the lower deck, directly to San Francisco. The Key System in its earliest years
was actually in part a real estate venture, with the transit part serving to
help open up new tracts for buyers. The Key System's investors (incorporated as
the "Realty Syndicate") also established two large hotels in Oakland,
one of which survives as the
