Here is a very early New Orleans Public Service Inc. (NOPSI) transfer. The list of lines along the bottom edge of the obverse allows us to date this transfer to the 1924-26 period: The list includes the new Freret line, started September 7, 1924, and the old Villere and Dauphine lines, which became the new Gentilly and St. Claude car lines February 21, 1926. (The Gentilly and St. Claude bus lines listed on the transfer were different from the 1926 streetcar lines of those names.) The list includes both car lines and bus lines. Note the use of a tear-off PM stub; if removed, the time punched is AM. The big red “21” is the day of the month, but neither the month nor the year is found on the transfer. This one has been punched for 4:20 PM, for transfer from Lakeview to an outbound Prytania car.
The route name Lakeview is a bit of a mystery. There is no streetcar or bus line known to the author or his sources to have borne that name. If we examine the list of lines on the transfer critically, we note that Canal, Esplanade, St. Charles, and Tulane refer to the Belt Lines; the word Belt was often omitted from these route names. Canal Bus refers to what was later called the Canal Blvd. bus line; at this time, it ran only between City Park Ave. and Harrison Ave. Gentilly Bus refers to the bus line later called Gentilly-Broad. But the list of lines does not include either West End or Spanish Fort. Spanish Fort is known to have been a shuttle service between the West End line and the Fort during the off-season for the amusement park. West End is known to have sometimes been called Cemeteries-West End, to distinguish it from the Canal Belt line, but that name is not found on the list, either. There is a subdivision of New Orleans called Lakeview, which is east of the West End streetcar tracks. Canal Blvd. runs north-south along the middle of this subdivision, and Harrison Ave. forms an east-west line around the middle of the subdivision. The Lakeview line must have run from that subdivision to the central business district along Canal Street, because the transfer is punched for change to the Prytania line, which would have to have been done on Canal at Camp or Magazine Street. It is speculated that Lakeview was an experimental or proposed rename of the West End line, which was used either briefly, or not at all, some time in the 1924-26 period. One speculative possibility is that it was a short-turn version of the West End line, turning back perhaps in the vicinity of Harrison, to avoid running unneeded service all the way to the lake. Yet another speculation is that it was planned to alternate streetcars to West End and Spanish Fort, to better serve the new homes being built in the Lakeview area. Perhaps transfers were ordered and printed, and then the idea fell through, but the transfers were used anyway. Additional information on the use of this route name is needed.