Mystery Letters Found Inside Trolley Car

The Roundhouse takes visitors back into Savannah’s past by letting them ride the rails.

But for one Preservation Society worker, restoring the original Savannah Streetcar unveiled more than just wood and paint.

“When I was tearing out some parts on the inside I found some letters that came, fell out of this container inside the wall,“ explained Ian Ashenfelter, a Preservation Carpenter.

Those letters had a postmark from 1950.

“Most of the stuff we find is impersonal like bottles, bottle caps, buttons things like that,“ said Terry Koller, Manager of Railroad Operations at the Roundhouse. “This really had a personal touch.“

Some of the letters are badly decayed, others still in good enough condition to see names and words on the page.

“It was kind of like reading someone else’s mail from 59 years ago,“ laughed Koller.

Reading, and wondering.

The Trolley was probably phased out in the early 40’s, before the letters were even written.

So, where did they come from, and how did they get inside an old, apparently discarded, trolley?

“I thought maybe the conductor who was running this streetcar back in the day maybe had dropped them down, through a little crack that there was in this cavity,“ said Ashenfelter.

“It would be amazing if we could actually track down the person who wrote them or received the letters,“ said Koller. “And come back here and maybe kind of explain how they got in there.“

The letter you can read brings up one more question. It begins, “Don’t even speak to me. I am furious with you for not answering my letter.“. So??????

“How did the friendship turn out after being so furious?,“ wondered Koller.

That’s something everyone here hopes someone can and will answer.

The trolley, a Berny Safecar, was actually donated by someone in the Coastal Empire, but they didn’t know about the letters.

If you think you can help solve this mystery, and find out who the letters belong to, just call the Savannah Railroad Operations Department at 651-2338 and press Extention 204 or 217.