Marietta History Tour Trolley

Yesterday Anna, my mother-in-law Marie, and I went on the Trolley History Tour of Marietta. The name of the trolley is Ruban.

As far as I could tell they had a staff of three: (1) the ticket seller who I am pretty sure jointly owns the venture with her husband; (2) Charley the Trolley driver; and (3) Brad the docent and ticket taker.

The tour is designed to last about one hour, which it about did. I didn’t time it or anything. But you have to allow for sometimes heavy traffic and trains coming through.

Along with your ticket you receive a brochure-size map of downtown Marietta and some of the outskirts which has numbers scattered around ,but mostly on the main thoroughfares. Each number on the map represents a location in the real world that Brad will point out an item of interest. There are 33 items on the map.

I think Brad cheated, I think he went beyond the 33 and pointed out between 35 and 40. The reason I think Brad did this is because Brad is very enthused with his duties. It was obvious that Bard loves history and gets a kick out of sharing what he knows. He did his job with a gusto. He spoke clearly and loudly. He made it interesting.

Of course the elite of Marietta , the different generations of the Glovers, the Brumbys, and the Clays were mentioned a lot. The railroad was talked about a lot along with the Civil War and some of the famous that once lived here, such as Joanne Woodard and Virginia Hill.

The ticket lady/owner told us in no uncertain terms we would learn something we didn’t know about Marietta already even if we were natives. She was right.

Being a local history enthusiast I can say that Brad got the dates rights of the many dates to remember.

All the information was interesting at the moment. But I doubt if I retained all of it. So the question is if you don't retain all the information you learned on a history tour, is it money wasted?

I think Brad learned quiet a bit about the Civil War beyond the Marietta city limits. He has carried a group to Gettysburg and told us a good bit about an upcoming event in Chickamauga Battlefield. . Good for him.

Charley the driver was faced with the huge job of getting a ship-size vehicle down some small narrow streets and making sharp 90◦ turns. As I mentioned, many of the sites were on main-drags in Marietta and most days are “business as usual days” so Charlie could not slow down. And of course, stopping and having everybody get out for a photo opportunity was out of the question.



It was a very enjoyable tour. They also transport the Ghost Tour around. I would like to get in on that someday.

I think there are a few more historical items that should have been mentioned that has made nation-wide attention… but I guess there is just so much you can cram into an hour.

We humans have a short attention span.