"Interurban Queen" (1968/1970) and "Assault on Fat Mountain" (1973/1976)

A few times in his work, Lafferty mentions the Toonerville Trolley, a wonderful comic strip that I wasn’t familiar with until I came across his references to it. Created by Fontaine Fox, it ran from 1908 to 1955. Its real title is The Toonerville Folks, but it’s best known for the Toonerville Trolley, which even inspired a few real-world namesakes—one of which ran in my town. Not just in my town, in fact, but near my neighborhood of West University Place, which is fun.

Toonerville was a gag strip featuring the quirky residents of a fictional small town, with its most famous feature being the rickety streetcar. Operated by the “Skipper,” the trolley is unreliable, often breaking down and running late, and much of the humor comes from the Skipper’s hijinks. I recommend it highly to Lafferty fans.

Fontaine Fox 's Toonerville Trolley, Herb Galewit, First Edition, 1972.pdf

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I was thinking about Toonerville again today because I reread “Interurban Queen,” this time in the new Centipede Press volume. It’s one of my favorite Lafferty stories. He slips into one of his alternative history pastoral rhapsodies, the way he does the underread and underappreciated “Assault on Fat Mountain.”

The Saturday riders passed a roadway restaurant with its tables out under the leaves and under a little rock overhang. A one-meter-high waterfall gushed through the middle of the establishment, and a two-meter-long bridge of set shale stone led to the kitchen. Then they broke onto view after never-tiring view of the rich and varied quasiurbia. The roadway forms, the fringe farms, the berry patches! In their seasons: Juneberries, huckleberries, blueberries, dewberries, elderberries, highbush cranberries, red raspberries, boysenberries, loganberries, nine kinds of blackberries, strawberries, greenberries.  "Interurban Queen"

“They are a people in the rich heartland (which should be our own heartland) enjoying dew-berries and blueberries, June berries and huckleberries and elderberries, blackberries and gooseberries; enjoying hazelnuts and butternuts; pleasuring themselves on tomatoes and musk melons; the rich Appalachians! Consider their crackerjack factories in Council Bluffs and their alligator farms in Memphis! Regard the wealth of their windmill-makers and rubber-plant growers. Be amazed at the daily wages of their iron-makers and cucumber pickers. Do you know that even the poor people in Appalachia have pumpkin every day?” "Assault on Fat Mountain"

In both "Assault on Fat Mountain" and "Interurban Queen," the pastoral settings are tendentiously uchronic. They are pristine and edenic, visions of nature outside of history, but they are only so because of breaks within it. These landscapes motivate the central confrontation in each story.

"Assault on Fat Mountain" forks off from 1788, when the fate of the frontier state of Franklin hinged on a coin toss, and imagines an alternate history in which Appalachia grows into a prosperous fat nation, overflowing with fertile valleys, vineyards, and farms. Abundance becomes the source of envy when poorer lowland neighbors, resentful of Appalachia’s plenty, rise up in revolt. "Interurban Queen" forks off from around 1907, the year of Oklahoma statehood, when its main character, Charles Archer, must decide whether to invest in rubber for automobiles or in the interurban trolley system. His decision sets up an ironic premise for the pastoral future. Charles Archer invested in the non-pastoral one. In this future, orchards, waterways, and quasi-rural harmony thrive under a network of trolleys, while automobiles, outlawed but never entirely gone, are forces of social disruption but also coefficients of freedom.

Both stories reject versions of American history, and by extension all history, that treat it as a tale of unilinear progress. Instead, they follow the conservative suspicion that there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

In school, I had learned about the proposal for the State of Franklin. But before I learned about the Toonerville Trolley or read Interurban Queen, I knew very little about interurban railways. It turns out that, in the early 20th century, electric interurban railways flourished across the United States. Entrepreneurs rapidly built inter-city trolley lines. More than 5,000 miles of track were laid between 1901 and 1904 alone, which is a little mind-boggling. Construction peaked again from 1905 to 1908, with another 4,000 miles added. By 1916, the U.S. had over 15,500 miles of interurban tracks, an astounding rise from virtually none in 1890.

These electric cars, powered by overhead wires, were cleaner and quieter than steam locomotives. They offered frequent, affordable service for commuters and farmers alike. Tracks often ran down main streets and country roads. They knitted together a ribbon network of regional transit. In Oklahoma, for example, interurbans connected Oklahoma City to Guthrie, Norman, El Reno, and more, starting around 1903. Smaller towns like Ardmore, Enid, and Muskogee had interurban lines by the 1910s. At their height, interurbans carried passengers, freight, and even served as moving billboards for local businesses, all things that are the bread and butter of the gags in The Toonerville Folk.

The explosion started to change in the 1910s. Lines struggled to turn a profit and faced rising competition. The growth of the automobile industry and improvements to roads in the 1920s siphoned away riders. By the 1930s, the trolley lines were being abandoned in large numbers. National interurban mileage fell from its 1916 peak to just 1,500 miles by 1950, and barely 200 miles by 1959. In Oklahoma, the last interurban trips ran in the 1940s and 1950s. Tulsa’s Sand Springs line lasted until 1955, and one electric line survived until 1960, right when Lafferty was about to become the Lafferty we know. The Oklahoma trolleys themselves were a relic that didn’t make it into Flatland.

The Electric Interurban railways in America George W Hilton and John F Due.pdf

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Period	U.S. History	Interurban Queen
1890s Dawn of autos and electric transit	First practical automobiles appear in the 1890s; seen as rich men’s toys .Electric streetcars common in cities; first interurban trolley line opens (1890s).Public skeptical of cars; some locales (e.g. rural districts, resort towns) attempt to ban automobiles as nuisances.1896: Henry Ford builds his first car; Duryea Motor Wagon Company sells a few cars.	Circa 1896: Influential figures conclude the automobile must be stopped for the public good. Early legislation or social action is taken to prohibit motorcars outright. Electric traction (streetcars, interurbans) is embraced as the future of transport. The nascent car industry fails to gain support. Divergence occurs: society chooses rail over road.
1900s Rapid growth or suppression	Auto technology improves (1901 Mercedes, 1903 Wright brothers also presage planes).1903: Ford Motor Co. founded; Olds produces Curved Dash runabouts; ~8,000 cars in U.S. by 1900 grows to 79,000 by 1905.1900–1907: Huge interurban boom, thousands of miles of track built. Lines connect cities in Midwest, California, etc.1908: Ford Model T introduced, affordable at $825, igniting the mass car market.	With autos outlawed, no mass production of cars occurs. Early tinkerers (Ford, etc.) either pivot to other machines or fade out. Investment pours into interurban expansion instead. By 1908, every major city is building electric lines to nearby towns. The nation commits to a transit-first infrastructure. A cultural mindset forms: horse-drawn vehicles and bicycles remain for local personal travel; for intercity travel, electric trolleys are standard. Any attempt to drive a petrol car is met with hostility and legal penalty.
1910s Peak traction vs. Model T era	1910: ~500,000 cars registered in U.S. Ford’s moving assembly line (1913) drops Model T price to ~$360; by 1916 over 500,000 Model T’s produced annually. Car ownership surges. Interurban mileage peaks (~15,500 miles in 1916), but profitability declines as autos, trucks, and buses start competing. World War I (1914–18) spurs roadway improvements (for troop transport) and usage of trucks.1916: Federal Aid Road Act – first federal highway funding, signaling government support for roads over rail.1919: 6.5 million autos in U.S. By 1920, cars are still novel in many rural areas, but gaining popularity.	1910s sees a nationwide interurban network nearly completed. By 1916, one can travel between most towns by trolley; mileage is perhaps equivalent to our roads. No “Great War” boost for autos; instead, the WWI effort likely reinforces rail (moving troops by train, conserving fuel).Any remaining automobile enthusiasts are underground. A character like Charles Archer in the story invests in cars, but by the late 1910s his venture fails utterly. Society enters the 1920s with private motoring essentially extinct. Perhaps a few “klunkers” (old gasoline cars) are hidden away by cranks, but the mainstream is proudly transit-oriented.
1920s Roaring cars vs. Quasiurban zenith	The Automobile Age is in full swing. By 1929, ~23 million cars are in the U.S., and 60% of families have one. Paved highways proliferate (e.g., Route 66 in 1926). Urban streets are redesigned for cars; pedestrians lose priority. Massive suburban growth around cities as commuting by car becomes feasible. Roadside businesses (gas stations, diners, motels) emerge. Public transit ridership declines; many interurbans go bankrupt in the mid-1920s.Cultural shifts: car = freedom and status. Car-crash fatalities skyrocket. The car lobby reframes the safety narrative (invents the “jaywalker” concept, etc.) to avoid restrictions. 1929 stock market crash, but cars are deeply ingrained by then.	“Quasiurbia” society matures. By the 1920s, the U.S. is an endless expanse of orderly towns and farms with no large congested cities. Interurban trolleys crisscross every region, functioning like arteries of commerce and travel. Technological improvements might make them faster or more efficient. “Excursion Cities” become popular leisure destinations accessible by trolley. Family vacations are via scheduled excursion trains. Culturally, transit ridership is patriotic. The car is vilified. By the mid-1920s, any remaining automobiles are literally contraband. Vigilante crews or authorities occasionally hunt down and destroy “bootleg” cars. The nation is prosperous in a cooperative economic model. The 1929 crash might be softened or altered in this world.
1930s Depression and beyond	Great Depression hits; car sales plummet but later recover. The car ownership trend continues upward. New Deal (FDR) invests heavily in road projects.1935–1940: Many urban streetcar systems are bought up by interests like National City Lines (backed by GM, Firestone) and converted to buses in the controversial “streetcar conspiracy.” By 1940, the U.S. is poised for a post-WWII car boom. The Pennsylvania Turnpike opens (1940) as a precursor to Interstates. Culturally, the car is fully integrated into the American Dream (freedom, mobility).	In quasiurbia, the Depression's blow might be cushioned by a more self-sufficient, distributed system. People rely on cheap public transport. Government public works likely double down on transit infrastructure (e.g., electrification upgrades, new trolley lines). By 1940, the U.S. in Interurban Queen is static but stable. Small-town America remains the norm—a frozen Norman Rockwell nation (minus the Model T in the driveway).In everyday culture circa 1940, the Interurbanites take pride in their orderly world. There is a strong stigma against egotism; driving a car is seen as an unforgivable sin of pride and endangerment.