When the Greensboro Electric Company, financed by New Yorkers, began electric streetcar service on June 11, 1902, replacing a small horsecar operation, everyone was excited about the Greensboro Patriots, a minor league professional baseball team. With streetcars providing easy access to the ballpark on Summit Avenue, the team led its league in attendance. On the other side of town, the trolleys ran to Lindley Park, where one could row a boat on the lake, bowl, dance, and watch movies or vaudeville shows.The tracks to the park went by Greensboro College (though students were not allowed to ride them as late as the mid-1920s) and the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNC-Greensboro). St. Leo's, the city's first hospital, was built on the Summit Avenue line. Because the lines ran by the mills and mill villages built by the Cone brothers, the workers and their families could easily move around the city. The streetcar had a major influence in the establishment of new suburban neighborhoods, of all economic levels.
In 1909, the W. N. Coler Company of New York City purchased the streetcar systems and electrical and gas utilities of Greensboro (eleven miles of track) and their franchise for High Point, to organize a new company, North Carolina Public Service Company. Based in Greensboro, the company was controlled by officers and directors from the North, although it included representatives from its N.C. service areas. By 1915 the company had expanded Greensboro's North Elm Street line to the upscale Irving Park neighborhood and purchased utility companies (including streetcar systems) in Salisbury and Concord. The company did not own hydroelectric plants to generate its own electricity. Rather, Public Service bought bulk or wholesale electricity from Southern Power Company and then retailed the power in its service area for general electricity needs and streetcar operations. In 1926 the North Carolina Public Service Company was sold to Southern Power's successor, Duke Power Company of Charlotte.
