Ohio was a center of the Interurban and electric railway industry. Many car manufacturers and component suppliers were located here. We had a major car builder right in Cleveland. The G. C. KUHLMAN CAR CO. was founded in Cleveland by Gustav C. Kuhlman in 1893. The Kuhlman family started in business producing hardwood interiors for office buildings and private residences. The family firm first built horse-drawn streetcars during the 1880s. During the subsequent decade Gustav started his own firm, specializing in street railway and interurban vehicles. A large plant was built in 1901 at E. 140th and the NYC (CSX today) railroad tracks in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood. Kuhlman was taken over in 1904 by Philadelphia’s J.G. Brill Car Company. Gustav Kuhlman remained with the firm briefly as general manager, and continued to visit the plant until his death in 1915.

Kuhlman built over 5,000 electric railway vehicles, most of which were streetcars. About fifteen percent of Kuhlman’s output consisted of interurban cars. Railways in Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Illinois accounted for most of Kuhlman’s orders, with Cleveland and Detroit being the two largest city customers. In the early 1920s the firm branched into bus body construction. Cleveland’s White Motor Company was a major customer of these early steel bus bodies.

As the market for electric railway vehicles shrank in the wake of the automobile and bus manufacturing, Brill expanded Kuhlman’s product line to include steel diners. The firm was closed permanently by Brill during the mid-1930s. The factory still stands on E.140th St. with the letters UHLMAN CAR still visible to Amtrak passengers. At the Museum, cars 024, 12, 31, 105, 588, 1203, 1225, 1519, 2318, and OX are Kuhlman products.