The interurban electric railways were an uncommonly colorful chapter in the history of American transport that originated from the technology of the electric street railway late in the 19th century. The speed, convenience, and reliability they brought to short-haul transportation gave rural and small town America a new freedom and mobility, and the interurbans enjoyed an exciting era of growth and prosperity in the opening decades of the century. Their collapse came almost as swiftly in the years after World War I, when the automobile came along to do the local transportation job even better.