Digital Transit Archiving
We convert paper collections, photographs, timetables, and equipment records into structured digital files with catalog notes that historians can search and cite.
Learn about archiving →
Educational Archive · Arizona Nonprofit · Est. 1976
FolkCity | American Urban Transit Heritage & Archiving Initiative.
Preserving the history of public transportation, archiving vintage streetcar data, and educating communities. Sponsored by the Arizona Street Railway Museum, our digital platform delivers comprehensive historical guides and urban preservation consulting for cultural organizations across the United States.
Who we are: FolkCity is the official digital platform of Arizona Street Railway Museum, a registered Arizona non-profit founded in 1976 (Entity ID: 0090400).
What we do: Digital transit archiving, public education programs, and urban heritage consulting for museums, schools, and cultural organizations.
Contact: info@folkcity.com | +1 (480) 963-9011
Archiving
Digitizing streetcar records, maps, photographs, and rolling-stock data for long-term public access.
Education
Classroom-ready guides that help students understand how cities were shaped by public transit.
Consulting
Preservation advice for cultural organizations stewarding urban transportation heritage.
Our Work
Three programs, one public mission
FolkCity exists to make American streetcar and urban railway history usable for researchers, teachers, students, and heritage partners.
Public Education Programs
Lesson outlines, reading lists, and community talks explain how streetcars, interurbans, and early buses shaped U.S. neighborhoods and downtowns.
View education programs →Urban Heritage Consulting
We help museums, historical societies, and civic groups plan collection care, interpretive exhibits, and documentation of transit-related sites.
Heritage consulting →About the FolkCity platform
FolkCity is the official digital platform of Arizona Street Railway Museum (founded in 1976), created so the history of American streetcars and urban railways remains available to researchers, historians, and students in a digital era. The museum’s Chandler, Arizona facility anchors the project; the website extends that work to classrooms and cultural partners nationwide.
Why this archive exists
Cities forget tracks faster than they forget buildings
Twentieth-century streetcar lines left maps, fare media, photographs, and oral histories that are easy to scatter and hard to reconstruct. FolkCity gathers that material into an educational record so communities can understand how people once moved through American cities.
The platform is not a transit operator and not a commercial marketplace. It is a public-education archive: guides, cataloging methods, and preservation advice that keep local transportation heritage from disappearing into unlabeled boxes.
Start an archive inquiry
Curators respond to researchers, teachers, and cultural organizations during weekday hours, Arizona time.
Phone: +1 (480) 963-9011
Email: info@folkcity.com
Facility: 330 E Ryan Rd, Chandler, AZ 85225