The Rapid Railway began operation in 1903 as the Interurban Railway and Terminal Company’s northernmost traction line. The Interurban Railway and Terminal Company began near Pleasant Ridge and Kennedy Heights in Cincinnati and connected to a streetcar line that originated downtown on Sycamore Street, passing through fourteen municipalities. The interurban cars ran down Main Street through Mason before turning south onto Dawson Street, crossing Muddy Creek, and traveling to Kings Mills, then continued to Lebanon where the line terminated. The full ride from downtown Cincinnati to Lebanon took approximately one hour and fifty minutes. The Rapid Railway was vital to local munitions production during World War I. In 1916, the Peters Cartridge Company opened a new munitions factory on its site near the traction line in Kings Mills. Among other war materiel, the factory manufactured rifle and machine gun cartridges, and company advertisements noted that the factory was accessible by interurban and workers were able to commute at a time before many owned automobiles. The Interurban Railway and Terminal Company abandoned the line in 1922, but it heralded a new era of mobility for the region and aided Warren County and the region’s war effort.