on July 1, 1911. CER acted as a de facto holding company for the "L"unifying its operations, instituting the same management across the companies, and instituting free transfers between the lines starting in 1913but kept the underlying companies intact. This continued until the companies were formally merged into the single Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT), which assumed operations on January 9, 1924; the former Metropolitan was designated the Metropolitan Division of the CRT for administrative purposes. Although municipal ownership of transit had been a hotly-contested issue for half a century, the publicly owned Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would not be created until 1945, or assume operation of the "L" until October 1, 1947. The AE&C went bankrupt in 1919 and was split into the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad (CA&E) in 1921. The station closed in 1958 as it was replaced by the Congress Line. Station details The station was located at 614 South St. Louis Avenue. With the installation of the interlockings, a tower was placed on the eastern half of the southern, eastbound platform. The interlockings themselves were mechanical and had number 7 frogs. Ridership The Garfield Park branch last recorded individual station ridership statistics in 1948. In that year, St. Louis served 497,085 passengers, a 13.77 percent decline from the 576,453 passengers it had served in 1947. Its 1948 performance made it the 95th-most ridden of the 223 "L" stations that were at least partially-manned at the beginning of the year, whereas in 1947 it had been the 87th-busiest of 222 such stations. Notes References Works cited Defunct Chicago "L" stations Railway stations opened in 1895 Railway stations closed in 1953 1895 establishments in Illinois 1953 disestablishments in Illinois