The Metropolitan Street Railroad Company provided some the first service to southeastern limits of the city and established eastern lines to the City of Decatur. The company’s incorporators included Lemuel P. Grant, a successful railroad engineer, and Jacob Haas, a prominent merchant. Around 1884, the Metropolitan’s first lines were constructed from the downtown junction to the park side suburban development where Grant resided (Carson 1982:11). Grant had donated approximately 100 acres of land on the southeastern periphery to the city for the creation of a park (Garrett 1954:40-41).  By 1886, the Metropolitan Street Railroad began sponsoring concert events there to promote ridership and land sales around what would become Grant Park (Carson 1982).

A year later, the Metropolitan was granted use of “dummy” steam engines along its routes, so four locomotives were purchased from a Pittsburgh company. The company would run a total of seven dummy lines by 1888 (Martin 1975:20). Lines were later extended to the southeast to service the middle-class suburb of Ormewood Park and Confederate Soldiers’ Home (Garrett 1954:266). Despite the technological advancements and the expansion of routes, the company was not a financial success, and it was placed on the auction block in 1892 (Carson 1982). Steam powered streetcars never supplanted the mule-drawn system Atlanta residents relied on for almost two decades of street rail service.