Streetcar cars ran from the courthouse in every direction by 1907, close to reaching the system's maximum size of forty-three trolleys using nine miles of track, operating on ten-minute schedules. Even though the Zinzendorf Hotel had been destroyed by fire in 1892, the availability of the streetcar helped to spur growth of the West End neighborhood on the sloping hills beyond the hotel site. Nissen Park was built at the end of the South Main Street line. Tracks out Liberty Street to the north led to Piedmont Fair Grounds and east along Third Street to City Hospital.

In 1891, after one year of streetcar service, the Winston-Salem Street Railway Company merged with the local electric utility to form the Winston-Salem Railway and Electric Company. Later in the decade industrialist Henry E. Fries founded the Fries Manufacturing and Power Company, which owned both the streetcar system and the area's electrical network.[19 In 1913, however, the company was sold to Southern Public Utilities Company, a subsidiary of Southern Power (forerunner of Duke Power) in Charlotte.