The great earthquake and fire of April 1906 destroyed virtually the entire Powell Street cable car fleet. To replace the Powell Street fleet, owner United Railroads used cable cars that had been working the Sacramento-Clay line and were stored outside the fire zone.

Under a previous owner, the cable cars that served several lines from the cable car barn at Washington and Mason Streets (still the cable cars’ home today!) were painted different colors according to the lines they served. The Powell-Mason cars were painted yellow (modeled on Car 15); the Washington-Jackson cars were painted green; and the Sacramento-Clay cars were painted red (modeled on Car 11). United Railroads started painting them all into red, but hadn’t quite finished when the quake and fire struck.

After rebuilding the badly damaged system after the quake, United Railroads started painting all the cable cars stationed at the Washington and Mason cable car barn a dark green, with red window trim and roofs, the colors they also adopted for their hundreds of electric streetcars. By about 1909, the job was done.

Green would remain the dominant color in Powell Street cable car liveries for 75 years, until the system was rebuilt in 1982-84, though the trim colors on the cars changed several times. Car 13 itself was built new by skilled Muni craftworkers in 1991, replacing a worn out car.