Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
©  Copyright, 2023, Duncan Bryant Rushing

Preface

The Southwestern Greyhound Lines was a regional operating carrier of the Greyhound Lines.

Contents

Introduction
The Big Picture
Carl Eric Wickman and Edwin Carl Ekstrom
Staking Claims in Texas
Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company
Robert Chesley Bowen
Back to the Southland GL
R.C. Bowen Carries On
Paul William Tibbetts
Southwestern Transportation Company
Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
At Last — the Southwestern Greyhound Lines
Central Division
SWGL as a Division
Merger of the SWGL into the Fifth CGL
Long-distance Through-coaches
Pool (Interline) Operations
Meeting Other Greyhound Companies
Beyond the SWGL, the OGL, the GLGL, and the Fifth CGL
Conclusion
Addendum
Related Articles
Bibliography

Introduction

            The Southwestern Greyhound Lines (SWGL) was a regional intercity motor-coach carrier in the system of the Greyhound Lines (GL).  It was based in Fort Worth, Texas, USA.  It existed from 1933 until -60, when it became merged into the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation (the Greyhound parent umbrella firm).  That division was known also as the fifth Central Greyhound Lines (CGL).  After the merger of the SWGL, the Central Division was known for a short time as the Central-Southwestern Division, but the parent Greyhound firm soon dropped the word Southwestern and reverted to the simple name of the Central Division.

            Although the SWGL itself became formed on 01 October 1933, the Motor Transit Corporation (before it became renamed, on 05 February 1930, as The Greyhound Corporation), already had bought the Red Ball Bus Lines on 15 October 1926 and (on the same day) had created the Southland Transportation Company, each of which then led directly (in steps) to the formation of the SWGL.  [Carl Eric Wickman and his associates, in Duluth, Minnesota, had created the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) on 20 September 1926, fewer than four weeks before the purchase and the creation.]

            [On 01 August 1956 the parent Greyhound firm merged the Overland GL (OGL) into the Northland GL (NGL), then on 01 September 1957, in another step of consolidation, it further merged the Great Lakes GL (GLGL) also into the NGL.  Greyhound renamed the twice-expanded NGL as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation (known also as the fifth Central GL).  More about the OGL, the NGL, and the GLGL is available in my articles bearing their respective names, and more about the six uses of the name of the Central GL (CGL) is available in my article about the CGL.]

            This story of the Southwestern GL contains much potential for confusion among the names of some of the firms involved.  There are the Southwest Motor Securities, the Southwestern Transportation Company, the Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Red Ball Bus Lines, the Red Ball Motorbus Company, and the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company – plus two companies known as the Southland Transportation Company – the Southland Transportation Company of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas) and the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (with a charter from the State of Delaware) – along with two companies known as the Southland Greyhound Lines – the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas) and the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware (with a charter from the State of Delaware).  Please watch closely!

The Big Picture

            In 1914 Carl Eric Wickman (a recent Swedish immigrant) and another man (of Swedish descent), using a second-hand 1913 Hupmobile open touring car, started running a bus service in Hibbing, Minnesota, on a more-or-less fixed route with scheduled (or at least frequent) trips.  The business succeeded well, and it grew fast.

            Wickman by 1924 had begun to want to develop a large motor-coach system throughout a large regional area.  That is, he did not feel content with just a small firm within a relatively small area.  Wickman made contacts in Duluth, Minnesota, and he assembled a syndicate of bankers, financiers, and investors.  Then on 19 December 1924 the syndicate formed a corporation – the Northland Transportation Company (NTC) – which then took over the companies that Wickman had previously built and bought.

          Ralph Budd, the president of the Great Northern (GN) Railway, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, recognized that the GN Railway (GNR) needed the benefit of highway-coach passenger service – to supplant or supplement some of the passenger trains of the GNR.  On 15 May 1925 Wickman (with the consent of his syndicate) agreed not only to sell the NTC to the GNR but also to move to Minneapolis and to manage the NTC on behalf of the GN Railway.  Within a week the closing of the sale took place.  Under the GNR the NTC continued to add and develop routes in support of the GNR.

            Sometime during the second quarter of 1924 Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom, with the backing of Wickman, had founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines, running first between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, both in Michigan.  Then he continued to build a route network throughout the western part of the Lower Peninsula (LP) of the Wolverine State and southwestwardly to Chicago, Illinois.

            While Wickman continued to serve (in Minneapolis) as the president of the Northland Transportation Company (and while the NTC continued as a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway), Wickman and his associates in Duluth (that is, his financiers and investors) on 20 September 1926, in a momentous and hugely significant action, formed the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which promptly began to accumulate at least controlling interests (if not 100-percent interests) in companies operating in areas outside the territory of the GN Railway (and thus of no concern to the GNR).

            On 15 October 1926 the MTC, in its first purchase, bought the Safety Motor Coach Lines, which in 1924 Ed Ekstrom had founded.  [In 1948, after several steps, that firm became a major part of the Great Lakes GL.]

            And on the same day, 15 October 1926, the MTC took two major first steps in Texas – it created one operation and bought another.  It created the Southland Transportation Company of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas), and it bought the Red Ball Bus Lines.

            After those purchases (and the creation) Ekstrom served as the first president of the MTC.

            On 05 February 1927 the MTC renamed the Red Ball Bus Lines as the Red Ball Motorbus Company.

            In 1927 Wickman sent Ekstrom to Texas, where he took part in forming and developing the Southland Greyhound Lines.  [The Southland GL consisted of two separate corporations – the Southland GL of Delaware, which owned the property (the routes, equipment, and facilities), and the Southland GL of Texas, which conducted the operations.

            Back in Duluth on 26 July 1927 Ed Ekstrom resigned from the presidency of the MTC, and Eric Wickman dispatched him to Fort Worth to become the president of the Red Ball Motorbus Company and to conduct the growth and development of Greyhound in Texas and some of the rest of the Southwest.

            On that same day, 26 July 1927, Ekstrom became the first president of the Southland GL of Texas, which on 01 October 1933 became a large part of the Southwestern GL (SWGL).  He served in that post (as the president of the Southland GL of Texas) until 1930, when he resigned or retired from Greyhound, and when Paul William Tibbetts succeeded him.

            The syndicate created yet another firm, the Southwest Motor Securities Corporation, which bought the Red Ball Motorbus Company from the MTC.

            Then on 01 August 1927 the Southwest Motor Securities Corporation (with a charter from the State of Delaware) became renamed as the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (still with the same charter from the State of Delaware).  The Southland Transportation Company of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas) remained in existence.  Thus the Delaware company owned the Red Ball property, and the Texas company conducted the Red Ball operations (by using the property of the Delaware company).

            On 01 January 1928 the Red Ball Motorbus Company bought the assets and operations of the Southland Transportation Company of Texas and merged them into itself, and then the name of the Red Ball Motorbus Company became changed to the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company (merely by the addition of the word Southland).

            In October 1928 the Saint Louis Southwestern (SLSW or “Cotton Belt”) Railway formed a subsidiary, the Southwestern Transportation Company, to run both trucks and motor coaches within its territory, as did many other rail carriers in the US.  On 06 December 1928 the Southwestern Transportation Company started running.  Before long it reached from Saint Louis to Malden, Missouri, and thence across Arkansas, through Texarkana, and into East Texas.

            Later in 1928 the Southwestern Transportation Company bought the Nunnelee Bus Line, based in Tyler, Texas, running on six radial routes connecting Tyler with Mount Pleasant, Longview, Marshall, Henderson, Lufkin, and Waco.

            Robert Chesley “R.C.” Bowen was a wheeler and dealer who created several motor-coach firms in several parts of Texas and then sold them to others.  On 01 October 1929 the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (which owned the properties of the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company), with the approval of the Texas Railroad Commission (the proper regulatory agency), bought (from R.C. Bowen) all of Young’s Bus Line (the entire firm), all of the routes of the South Texas Coaches, and the route of the West Texas Coaches between Dallas and El Paso.

            Shortly after the purchase of those Bowen routes by Southland Red Ball, two more name changes took place – the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (with a charter from the State of Delaware) became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware (with that same charter from the State of Delaware), and the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company (with a charter from the State of Texas) became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas (with that same charter from Texas).  That means that the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware was the owner of the properties (the routes and other assets), and the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas was the operator of those properties – similar to the situation (and the name change) in 1927.

            On 05 February 1930 the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

            On 01 October 1933 The Greyhound Corporation, the parent umbrella Greyhound firm, formed the Southwestern Greyhound Lines, transferred the assets and operations of the predecessor firms (the Southland GL of Delaware and the Southland GL of Texas) into the SWGL, bought the Southwestern Transportation Company (from the Cotton Belt Railway), and merged also its assets and operations into the SWGL.

            During a major round of consolidations, on 01 July 1960 the parent firm merged the SWGL into the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, known also as the fifth Central GL (CGL).  Thus ended the SWGL.

            You’ve just seen the big picture of the forest of the Southwestern GL (above); now let’s examine (below) the details of the trees in that forest.

Carl Eric Wickman
and Edwin Carl Ekstrom

            On 15 December 1915 Carl Eric Wickman and his four partners (in the Hibbing Transportation Company), in Hibbing, Minnesota, incorporated their concern (previously a partnership).  They named their new firm as the Mesaba [sic] Transportation Company.  Wickman, the main founder of the Greyhound empire, had been born in 1887 in Sweden, and he had immigrated into the US at age 18 in 1905.  [Mesaba is an acceptable variation of Mesabi, although the latter form is the preferred and more common one.  That name refers to the Mesabi Range of the rich iron-ore deposits in the area; it came from the Ojibwe or Ojibwa language of the indigenous Native American Indians there.]

            One of the early investors and participants in the Mesaba Transportation Company was another man of Swedish descent – as were many of the other people in and around Hibbing – Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom, an accountant who had been born in 1889 in Ludington, Michigan, but raised in Hibbing.  He bought the shares of Dominic August Bretto Jr. after Bretto suddenly died (in 1917).  [Bretto was a local fireman who had joined as the fifth member of the firm.]

            On 01 January 1920 Wickman and others formed a second corporation, named as the Mesaba [sic] Motors Company (separate and different from the Mesaba Transportation Company) – not to offer transit services to the public but rather to sell White trucks, to modify cars (often Packards) for use as buses, to build bus bodies, to mount them on truck chassis, and to sell the completed buses and converted cars to various carriers (and, of course, to transfer some of them to the Mesaba Transportation Company, which continued to grow).

                Sometime during 1922 Wickman sold his stock in the Mesaba Transportation Company (to his associates in Hibbing) and moved from Hibbing to Duluth, where he pursued other business interests while continuing to own and direct the Mesaba Motors Company, which continued to operate in Hibbing.

            In 1922 Wickman’s Mesaba Motors Company financed the formation of the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company (by E.J. “Ed” Stone), which then ran in the Beaver State between Madison and Fond du Lac.

            And in the following year, 1923, Wickman’s firm sold a controlling interest in that new carrier in Wisconsin to Ed Ekstrom – in exchange for Ekstrom’s interest in the Mesaba Motors Company plus some cash.

            By March 1923 the Mesaba Motors Company had acquired a majority (controlling) interest in the White Bus Lines, which owned a minority (noncontrolling) interest in the Gopher Transportation Company, from which in December 1923 the White firm bought the rights to a route between Duluth and Minneapolis via Saint Paul (the Twin Cities of Minnesota), about 162 miles (altogether) to the south.  Thus the White Bus Lines took Wickman and his group beyond the area of Hibbing and Duluth.

            In the spring of 1924 White extended its Grand Marais line (from Duluth) along the west shore of Lake Superior to Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, about 189 miles to the northeast from Duluth.  Thus Wickman’s White Bus Lines became an international motor-coach carrier.  [Port Arthur in 1970 became renamed as Thunder Bay.]

            [Much more about the early years of Eric Wickman, his associates, and their activities, starting in Hibbing in 1914, is available in my article about the Northland GL.]

            Sometime during the second quarter of 1924, Ekstrom traded in his interest in the Eastern Wisconsin firm and, with the backing of Wickman, founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines, starting with two Fageol Safety Coaches (hence the name of the firm, with the pleased approval of the Fageol brothers, Frank and William), running first between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, both in Michigan.  Within months Ekstrom extended his route network to the north to Fremont and to Ludington, both in Michigan, and to the southwest to Chicago, Illinois, via Holland, South Haven, and Benton Harbor, all three in Michigan, and Michigan City, Indiana.  Soon he added more routes throughout the western part of the Lower Peninsula (LP) of Michigan.  [The correct English pronunciation of the French name Fageol (in the US) is “fad-jull,” rhyming with “fragile” or “satchel.”]

            Ekstrom, borrowing an idea from Ed Stone, of the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company, introduced the name Greyhound by which to refer to his coaches, and he caused that name to be painted onto them.  Ekstrom also used and promoted the blue-and-white livery (on his coaches) and the slogan “Ride the Greyhounds.”

            Ekstrom’s firm also began using a logo or trademark, consisting of a running greyhound dog superimposed on a ring, which bore (on its lower half) the name “Safety Motor Coach Lines” and (on its upper half) the words “Greyhounds of the highway.”  That logo began to appear on the sides of the coaches and in print ads, not only in Michigan but also later in Texas, after Ekstrom took a large part in the expansion of Greyhound in the Southwest – and soon the logo appeared in many places from coast to coast.  The logo, with only slight modifications, mostly in the inscriptions, also became the pattern for shoulder patches on the uniforms for drivers throughout the entire Greyhound system, and it continued as such until the 1980s.

            By the end of 1925 Ekstrom’s firm appeared to own and operate as many as 30 coaches, mostly Fageol Safety Coaches plus a few Macks, and it continued to buy Fageols.

            In the next year, 1926, when Ekstrom bought his 50th Fageol coach, Frank Fageol gave to Ekstrom a handsome greyhound dog, whom Ekstrom named as Bus.  [Sadly, after Ekstrom moved to Texas, to take part in laying the foundation for the SWGL, Bus died in 1932 in San Antonio, Texas, after a car struck him.]

            Then in 1927 the Safety Motor Coach Lines introduced overnight service between Chicago and Muskegon, during an era while nighttime long-distance highway running was still a rarity.

            Eric Wickman by 1924 had begun to want to develop a large motor-coach system throughout a large regional area.  That is, he did not feel content with just a small firm within a relatively small area.  [Although Wickman had adopted the full anglicized name of Carl Eric Wickman, he expressed a preference to be known as Eric (his middle name).]

            However, he knew that he needed ample financial resources – both cash and credit – with which to build such an organization.  Wickman made contacts in Duluth and assembled a syndicate of bankers, financiers, financial executives, and investors.

            The syndicate then bought controlling interests in the White Bus Lines and the Mesaba Motors Company and then merged the latter into the former.

            Then on 19 December 1924 the syndicate formed another corporation – the Northland Transportation Company (NTC) – which then bought the White Bus Lines (including the merged assets of the former Mesaba Motors Company).

            In April 1925 the NTC bought the bus operations of the White truck dealer in Superior, Wisconsin, across the Saint Louis River (and across the state line) from Duluth.  During that purchase Wickman also hired Orville Swan “Sven” Caesar, a former truck mechanic who had managed the bus operations for the Superior White Company.

            Caesar instantly became Wickman’s sidekick and right-hand man, who eventually succeeded Wickman as the president and later as the chairman of the board of directors of The Greyhound Corporation.  Thereafter Wickman functioned as the strategist, who planned the course, and Caesar served as the tactician, who ran the daily show.

            Ralph Budd, the legendary and influential president of the Great Northern (GN) Railway, based in Minneapolis, recognized that the GN Railway (GNR) needed the benefit of highway-coach passenger service – to supplant or supplement some of the passenger trains of the GNR.  Budd sought not to start a new highway carrier but rather to buy a successful preexisting one.  Budd identified and approached Wickman as the most successful motor-coach executive (with the most successful motor-coach carrier) within the service area of the GNR (connecting Chicago with the Pacific Northwest).

            On 15 May 1925 Wickman (with the consent of his syndicate) agreed not only to sell the Northland Transportation Company (NTC) but also to move to Minneapolis and to manage the NTC on behalf of the GN Railway.  Within a week the closing of the sale took place.  The reported price was $500,000, for which the GNR received 90 percent of the ownership of the NTC.  The syndicate retained the other 10 percent.

            Budd and the GNR got the benefit of the expertise and experience of Wickman along with his company, and Wickman got the unmatched benefit of his access to the railroad’s financial capital and its political influence.

            Both Wickman and Caesar moved to Minneapolis, where they managed the NTC (for the GN Railway) and started growing it by using railroad money.

            While Wickman continued to serve (in Minneapolis) as the president of the Northland Transportation Company (NTC) – and while the NTC continued as a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway – Wickman and his associates in Duluth (that is, his financiers and investors in Duluth) on 20 September 1926, in a momentous and hugely significant action, formed the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which promptly began to accumulate at least controlling interests (if not full ownership) in companies operating in areas outside the territory of the GN Railway – and thus of no concern to the GNR).

            On 15 October 1926 the new MTC, in its first purchase, just four weeks after its creation, bought the Safety Motor Coach Lines, which in 1924 Ed Ekstrom had founded.

            After the purchase Ekstrom served as the first president of the MTC.

            In 1927, though, Wickman next sent Ekstrom to Texas, where he took part in forming and developing the Southland Greyhound Lines (the counterpart of the Northland Greyhound Lines).  On 26 July 1927 Ekstrom became the first president of the Southland GL, which on 01 October 1933 became a large part of the Southwestern GL (SWGL).  He served in that post (as the president of the Southland GL) until 1930, when he retired or resigned from Greyhound, and when Paul William Tibbetts succeeded him.

            On 05 February 1930 the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

            [Much more about the growth of the NTC, the NGL, and the MTC is available in my article bearing the name of the Northland GL.]

            Now here are the details involved in the background, creation, and development of the Southwestern GL:

Staking Claims in Texas

            In 1926 Wickman and Caesar wanted to expand into Texas and the rest of the Southwest, and they were well aware that the State of Texas was about to impose its regulation of intrastate highway carriers within its borders, starting likely, they thought, about the end of 1926.  To beat the deadline for grandfathered applications for routes within Texas, the bunch in Duluth felt a strong need to stake their claims for active operation along their target routes in Texas.

            On 20 September 1926 Wickman and his associates formed the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), as I mention twice in previous sections.

            Then on 15 October 1926 the MTC took two major first steps in Texas – it created one operation and bought another.  It created the Southland Transportation Company of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas).  And it bought the Red Ball Bus Lines – a loose informal association plus most of the firms of the drivers who had been members of that association.  The purpose of the Southland Transportation Company of Texas was to provide a corporation into which the MTC could merge those one-man operations and their assets.  [Those events – the creation and the purchase – took place on the same date on which the MTC also bought Ekstrom’s Safety Motor Coach Lines (along with the Interstate Stages and its subsidiary, the Cardinal Stage Lines, building from Chicago toward the East Coast).  More about that growth from Chicago toward the East is available in my article bearing the name of the Pennsylvania GL.]

            The main route of the Red Ball group ran from Dallas and Fort Worth (in the north) to San Antonio (in the south) via Waco and Austin.  Red Ball did not run between Dallas and Fort Worth.  Alvarado was the junction between the branch to and from Dallas and the branch to and from Fort Worth.  There were also short branches from Alvarado west-southwesterly to Cleburne and from Hillsboro southeasterly to Hubbard.  [Hillsboro, south of Alvarado, is now the southerly junction between I-35E and I-35W to the south of Dallas and Fort Worth; I-35E runs through Dallas, and I-35W runs through Fort Worth.  I-35E and I-35W rejoin each other in the southwest part of Denton, to the north of Dallas and Fort Worth.]

            The route from Dallas and Fort Worth to San Antonio was a good choice for the MTC’s start in Texas – because it served three of the four most populous cities in the Lone-star State.  [They were, in order of size then, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth.]  The MTC reached Houston also in October 1929.

            Southland of Texas received five new Fageol Safety Coaches in October 1926 and then nine more during November and December.  All 14 of them bore lettering for “Southland Red Ball,” in anticipation of a forthcoming change of name.  The brand-new ACF Motors Company apparently built them in Detroit – for ACF already had bought the Fageol Motors Company of Ohio, had moved production from Kent, Ohio, to Detroit, Michigan, and had continued to build coaches there while using the design and the brand name of Fageol (before converting to a slightly different design and the brand name of ACF).  [Some of the wags of that time said that ACF stood for “a counterfeit Fageol” (on the early ACFs).]

            [The ACF Motors Company moved its production in 1932 from Detroit to Berwick, Pennsylvania, and then in -44 to the plant of the J.G. Brill Company, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when the parent ACF corporation merged the Brill firm with the ACF Motors Company and then renamed the enlarged concern as the ACF-Brill Motors Company – and likewise changed the brand name of the coaches from ACF to ACF‑Brill.]

            [The Red Ball group here is just one transport carrier by the name of Red Ball among several others in Texas (using trucks or coaches) and among many others throughout other states as well.  First, during that era many such carriers used the names of colors coupled with the names of objects or animals by which to refer to the trucks or coaches, the companies, or both (such as Green Line, Gold Seal, White Star, Blue Goose, Purple Swan, or Red Bird).  Second, many soldiers returned from the Great War or World War (WW1) with memories of the Red Ball Express, which used a large number of high-priority supply trucks of the US Army in the Western Front of Europe during the fighting.]

Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company

            As I describe in a previous section, Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom, an accountant and an early investor and participant in the Hibbing Transportation Company, briefly owned a controlling interest in Ed Stone’s Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company during 1923-24, founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines in 1924, developed his latter firm, sold it to Eric Wickman’s Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) in 1926, and then became the first president of the new MTC.  He began to use the name Greyhound, the image of a greyhound dog, and a blue-and-white livery (on his coaches in Michigan).

            While Ekstrom served as the president of the MTC, he concurrently served also as the vice president (VP) of the Southland Transportation Company of Texas (while he remained in Duluth).

            Wickman, Caesar, and Ekstrom sent several managers to Fort Worth to oversee the operations and the next steps in Texas.

            On 05 February 1927 the MTC renamed the Red Ball Bus Lines as the Red Ball Motorbus Company, thus suggesting that all or most of the purchases and mergers of the old Red Ball arrangement had taken place.

            Then on 24 May 1927 the MTC made deals with four one-man operators who ran between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, Texas.  The contracts allowed the sellers to continue to run for two years before the buyer (the MTC) took over.

            Back in Duluth on 26 July 1927 Ed Ekstrom resigned from the presidency of the MTC, and Eric Wickman dispatched him to Fort Worth to become the president of the Red Ball Motorbus Company and to conduct the growth and development of Greyhound in Texas and some of the rest of the Southwest.  Ed took with him two of his three brothers, Alexander John “Alex” Ekstrom and Robert Ellis Ekstrom, the latter of whom had worked with him in his Safety Motor Coach Lines (in Michigan).

            The syndicate in Duluth formed another firm, the Southwest Motor Securities Corporation, which bought the Red Ball Motorbus Company from the MTC.  The Automotive Investments, the acquisition firm in Duluth, held a controlling interest in the new holding company (the new securities concern).

            Then on 01 August 1927 the Southwest Motor Securities Corporation (with a charter from the State of Delaware) became renamed as the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (still with a charter from the State of Delaware).  The Southland Transportation Company of Texas (with a charter from the State of Texas) remained in existence.  Thus the Delaware company owned the Red Ball property, and the Texas company conducted the Red Ball operations.  [Above, at the end of the introduction of this article, I warned you that there would be much potential for confusion among the names of some of the firms involved.  Now do you believe me?]

            [One might well wonder why the MTC used multiple corporations in these ways – in Texas and elsewhere, although in Texas that practice was more extreme.  It was largely a matter of not placing all the eggs into just one basket.  Startup business firms always face risks – more risks in some industries and in some places.  So far the growth of the MTC had gone from Minnesota through Wisconsin and Illinois to Chicago – and then through Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio – to Pittsburgh and toward Philadelphia, the Northeast, New England, and the rest of the Atlantic Seaboard – along with its cautious reach in the Southeast (between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Jacksonville, Florida, via Atlanta, Georgia).  But Texas and the rest of the Southwest were farther away from Duluth and Chicago – physically, culturally, and economically – and it presented more risks and uncertainties, so Wickman, Caesar, and their bunch wisely isolated their resources into neat separate corporations.  Thus, if one part of the empire failed in business (or became liable in a large lawsuit), then the assets of the rest of the empire would remain protected against claims by outsiders.  That’s the same rationale for which The Greyhound Corporation in 1963, during the start of its nearly explosive expansion and diversification, created the second Greyhound Lines, Inc. (the second GLI) – to protect the bus business against the risk of one or more failures in any of its huge number of other subsidiaries (which eventually slightly exceeded 100).  While I served as a professor of business (many years ago), and while I taught corporate strategy, I discussed this principle, and I often used examples from the development of the Greyhound Lines.]

            Late in 1927, with Ed Ekstrom on site in Fort Worth and very much in charge, the MTC began to buy some of the competitors on the Southland Red Ball route between Dallas (and Fort Worth) and San Antonio.  First he bought two firms affiliated with each other:

                  the Parker Transportation Company, running between Austin and Waco, with five coaches;
                  and the related Parker Motor Line, running between Dallas and Austin, with four coaches.

Three more ACF-built Fageols arrived for Parker at about the same time.

            On 01 January 1928 the MTC merged the assets and operations of four firms into Red Ball under Southland:

                  the two Parker firms described above;
                  the Central Texas Bus Line, including 16 coaches, running between Fort Worth and Waco;
                  and a two-man operation between Austin and Temple (on the Red Ball route, between Waco and Austin).

            At the same time, on 01 January 1928, two significant events took place:

                  First the Red Ball Motorbus Company bought the assets and operations of the Southland Transportation Company of Texas and merged them into itself.
                  Then the name of the Red Ball Motorbus Company became changed to the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company (by the addition of Southland).

The renamed company continued as a property of the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware, which in turn was a property of the Automotive Investments.

            By March 1928 the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company ran 35 coaches along 369 route-miles.  The makes of the equipment were mostly Fageol, ACF, Studebaker, and International.  The seating capacities ranged between 15 and 29.

            On 11 May 1928 the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company bought its last significant competitor, the San Antonio – Austin Bus Line, which had been a property of the Union Bus Company.

            Then in August 1928 it bought also the Spanish-American Travel Agency, which ran an irregular (unscheduled) service (albeit with a certificate from the state) between Fort Worth and Laredo via San Antonio.

            Next the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company created a joint venture with the Union Bus Company – to build a hotel and bus station downtown in San Antonio.  The Union Bus Company appear to have been a partnership, of which the managing partner was James “Jim” Amberson, along with Miller Pendleton as the other partner.  Amberson served as the president and general manager of the hotel and bus station.  [After Amberson retired from that post, he returned to Hondo, in Medina County, where he ran his family ranch for the rest of his life.]

            Before the MTC and Greyhound arrived in Texas, Amberson had been one of two major figures in the intercity-bus industry in their state.  The other was R.C. Bowen.

Robert Chesley Bowen

            Robert Chesley “R.C.” Bowen was a colorful and interesting character, a pioneer in highway transport in Texas, and a major player in the development leading to the Southwestern Greyhound Lines.  During his adulthood he was known almost exclusively as R.C. Bowen, at least in his business activities.

            R.C. Bowen and one of his brothers, Temple Gayle Bowen, started in the transport industry in 1919 by hauling cargo and passengers to and from the newly discovered oilfields, shortly after WW1, around Eastland, Ranger, and Breckenridge, west of Fort Worth, in an area not yet well served by railroads.  They offered shuttle service between the oilfields and the nearest train stations.

            Before long, predictably, the Texas and Pacific (T&P) Railway, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT or “Katy”) Railway, and several other smaller rail firms extended branch lines into the oilfields, so the pioneering brothers sold their business and shifted their attention to other areas.

            In 1923 R.C. and Temple, doing business under the trade name of the Bowen Brothers, began to run a Mack bus between Fort Worth and Mineral Wells, about 49 miles to the west.  During 1924-25 they added several more Macks, and in the spring of -26 they extended about 66 more miles to Cisco via Ranger and Eastland.  After that the name of Temple Bowen drops out of sight; however, it appears that he nonetheless quietly took part in the ownership and management of the Bowen firms along with R.C.

            In July 1926 R.C. Bowen incorporated the West Texas Coaches, which ran the route between Fort Worth and Cisco plus two long extensions:

                  from Cisco to San Angelo via Coleman and Ballinger;
                  and from Cisco to Sweetwater via Abilene, reaching toward Colorado City, Big Spring, Pecos, and El Paso.

By that time the firm owned, in addition to the large Macks, at least two Reos with 12-seat FitzJohn bodies.

            The date of 11 January 1927 came and went; that was the deadline date for grandfathered applications for active operations on routes in Texas.

            Early in 1928 the West Texas Coaches bought two certificates – to extend Bowen’s way from Sweetwater toward El Paso:

                  between Sweetwater and Colorado City (from Gus Rea),
                  and between Colorado City and Big Spring (from Lewis and Lewis).

            Soon Bowen’s West Texas Coaches extended from Big Spring all the way to El Paso via Pecos, thus offering through-coach service between Fort Worth and El Paso.  However, Bowen’s firm could not lawfully provide local service between Big Spring and Pecos – because George Page, doing business as the PageWay Stage Lines, held and used the local authority between those two points.  Further, Bowen made a deal with the Texas Motorcoaches, which held and used the local rights between Fort Worth and Dallas, and which was a subsidiary of the Northern Texas Traction Company.  That deal allowed the West Texas Coaches to run no-transfer service between Dallas and El Paso, although it did not gain any local right between Fort Worth and Dallas.

            The Northern Texas Traction Company was a subsidiary of Stone and Webster (S&W), a multistate public-utility management-service company.  [S&W during that era owned a large number of motor-coach properties, including several in Florida, which it merged together in January 1926 and named the resulting firm as the Florida Motor Lines (FML).  Then in January 1946 The Greyhound Corporation bought the FML and renamed it as the Florida Greyhound Lines (FGL).  More about the FML and the FGL is available in my article bearing the name of the Florida GL.]

            After Bowen became acquainted with S&W (and its workers) through the Texas Motorcoaches, Bowen entered into a contract under which S&W in February 1928 took over the management of Bowen’s West Texas Coaches.  That arrangement allowed Bowen to turn his attention to his next conquests and acquisitions.

            During the next few months Bowen formed and incorporated three more firms with significant and productive routes:

                  the Old Spanish Trail Coaches, between San Antonio and Pecos;
                  the Texas-Oklahoma Coaches, between Dallas and Tulsa, Oklahoma;
                  and the South Texas Coaches, with these four routes:
                        between Houston and Austin;
                        between Houston and Bryan;
                        between Houston and Dallas;
                        and between Houston and San Antonio.

            Further, the South Texas Coaches, one of Bowen’s newest concerns, bought one route and one firm:

                  a route between San Antonio and Victoria via Cuero, from the Union Bus Company;
                  and Young’s Bus Line, between Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana, via Beaumont, with alternate loops through Gonzales and through Port Arthur.

            Meanwhile a loose informal association of early operators had begun in 1921 by running between Fort Worth and Breckenridge, using open touring cars.  Some of them then extended from Breckenridge – southwardly to Ranger, Eastland, and Cisco; southwestwardly to Abilene; westwardly to Lamesa via Albany; northwardly to Seymour and thence westwardly to Spur.  All of those members used the name of the Lone Star Stages.

            One or more of the principals incorporated that group as the Lone Star Stage Lines in September 1928 and then in November agreed to sell the new firm to Bowen’s West Texas Coaches.  The deal became closed on 17 May 1929, and Bowen treated the addition as a division of his company.

            After that the West Texas Coaches owned and ran two Twin Coaches, 26 large parlor cars of several makes, and 24 smaller vehicles, including some Buick and Cadillac sedans.

            Then on 01 October 1929 the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (which owned the properties of the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company), with the approval of the Texas Railroad Commission (the proper regulatory agency), bought from R.C. Bowen:

                  all of Young’s Bus Line (the entire firm);
                  all of the routes of the South Texas Coaches;
                  and the route of the West Texas Coaches between Dallas and El Paso plus the alternate loop between Mineral Wells and Abilene via Breckenridge and Albany.

The total price was $1,150,000.  The South Texas Coaches remained dormant temporarily, but the West Texas Coaches continued to run along its routes not sold to Southland Red Ball.  The contract of sale also granted to Southland an option for a purchase of the Old Spanish Trail Stages.  Bowen continued to own his South Texas and West Texas firms even after he sold those routes.

            In a separate transaction the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines bought Bowen’s Texas-Oklahoma Coaches (between Dallas and Tulsa via McAlester and Henryetta, all three in Oklahoma).  That enabled the PG Lines to offer one-ticket one-carrier service connecting Dallas with Tulsa, Kansas City, Saint Louis, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, and many intermediate points.

            Shortly after the purchase of those Bowen routes by Southland, two name changes took place:

                  The Southland Transportation Company of Delaware (with a charter from the State of Delaware) became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware (with that same charter from Delaware).
                  Further, the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company (with a charter from the State of Texas) became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas (with that same charter from Texas).

            Charles Francis Wren, the president of The Pickwick Corporation and the VP of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, became also the first president of the Southland GL of Delaware; and Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom became the first president of the Southland GL of Texas.  [More about Wren and the Pickwick firms is available in my article about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.]

            Now let’s review, as Radar O’Reilly would say:

                  Originally the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware owned the property of the Red Ball Motorbus Company, and the Southland Transportation Company of Texas conducted the operations of the Red Ball Motorbus Company.
                  Next the Red Ball Motorbus Company bought the assets and operations of the Southland Transportation Company of Texas and merged them into itself, and then the Red Ball Motorbus Company became renamed as the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company.
                  Later, as I describe just above, the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware, and the Southland Red Ball Motorbus Company became renamed as the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas.
                  That means that the Southland Greyhound Lines of Delaware was the owner of the properties (the routes and other assets), and the Southland Greyhound Lines of Texas was the operator of those properties.

            Afterward R.C. Bowen acted as the temporary president of the Southland GL of Texas, the operator, for a short while of an unknown length, perhaps between Ed Ekstrom and Paul Tibbetts.

            [R.C. Bowen and his brother Temple were pioneers not only in highway transport but also in aviation.  The Bowen brothers and Fletcher Galigher “F.G.” Lippitt incorporated the Texas Air Transport (TAT) on 13 October 1927.  TAT began to service two airmail routes for the US Mail – one from Dallas to Houston and onward to Galveston – and one from Dallas to Waco and thence to Austin, San Antonio, and Laredo.  On 01 June 1928 the TAT began to haul passengers as well.  On 30 September 1928 the TAT flew the firstinternational airmail route in the western hemisphere – by going from Fort Worth to Laredo and thence across the Mexican border to Nuevo Laredo and Mexico City.  In October 1928 Alva Pearl “A.P.” Barrett, another airmail contractor, bought the TAT, and Barrett hired Cyrus Rowlett “C.R.” Smith to serve as the secretary and treasurer of the TAT.  On 18 February 1929 Barrett formed the Southern Air Transport (SAT), and he later merged his TAT into the SAT.  Smith became the secretary and treasurer of the SAT.  Later in 1929 The Aviation Corporation (Avco) bought the SAT.  In January 1930, after several more purchases and mergers, the SAT, including the former TAT, became a part of the American Airways, which in -34 became the American Airlines.  In 1929 Errett Lobban “E.L.” Cord founded the Cord Corporation, which eventually held more than 150 other firms, mostly involved in transport (including the Auburn Automobile Company, which built Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg cars).  Cord’s concern bought a controlling interest in the American Airways.  In 1930 Cord hired C.R. Smith to serve as the president of the American Airways, and Smith remained as the president of the American Airways and the American Airlines until 1974, when he retired.  Nobody then on the payroll had joined the company any more early than Smith had.]

Back to the Southland GL

            To close two gaps in two existing routes, the Southland GL of Texas in 1929 bought two improvements:

                  It bought (in November 1929) the route between Waco and Bryan (connecting with its own route between Bryan and Houston) from the Central Texas Coaches, which may have been another property of R.C. Bowen.
                  It bought (on 01 December 1929) the certificate for local rights between Big Spring and Pecos (in the midst of Southland’s route between Dallas and El Paso) from George Page’s PageWay Stage Lines.

            On 01 December 1929 the Southern Pacific (SP) Railroad bought a minority (noncontrolling) interest in the Southland GL of Texas.  [Since 31 May 1929 the SP Railroad had already owned a one-third interest in the Pacific GL (PacGL).  More about the PacGL will become available in my forthcoming article bearing its name.]

            On 01 January 1930 the Southland GL of Texas began regularly scheduled service from San Antonio via Dilley to Laredo and to Eagle Pass, and it sold back to the Union Bus Company the certificate for the irregular unscheduled service between Fort Worth and Laredo via San Antonio.

            Then on 01 August 1930, with the approval of the Texas Railroad Commission, the Southland GL of Delaware sold back to R.C. Bowen several minor routes and branches.  Most of them had come from his Lone Star Stage Lines (which had been a division of his West Texas Coaches), although that deal included also the route between San Antonio and Victoria via Cuero (from his South Texas Coaches).  [The commission had given its approval on 23 July 1930.]

            On that same day, 01 August 1930, the Southland GL of Delaware used its option to buy the Old Spanish Trail Coaches (between San Antonio and Pecos) from R.C. Bowen.

            During 1930 the Southland GL of Delaware, the owner of the properties, started or carried out a massive program of improvements in its facilities and equipment.  That included new stations in Fort Worth, Waco, Laredo, Corpus Christi, and Lake Charles, along with new garages in Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston.  It also included a large number of new Yellow Coach Zs.

            At the end of 1930 Ed Ekstrom resigned (or took a very early retirement) from the presidency of the Southland GL of Texas, and he, along with his brothers Robert and Alex, moved from Fort Worth to San Antonio, where Ed (or two or three of them) either formed or bought the Yellow Cab Company of San Antonio, to which they gave their full-time attention.  Sadly, Bus, the greyhound dog whom Frank Fageol had given to Ed, died in 1932 in San Antonio after a car struck him.

            Paul William Tibbetts succeeded Ed Ekstrom as the second president of the Southland GL of Texas, perhaps after a short term by R.C. Bowen as the temporary acting president.  [More about Tibbetts is available below in a section bearing his name.]

            During 1931, deep in the Great Depression – after the frightful and massive stock-market crash on the infamous Black Tuesday (29 October 1929) – the Southland GL of Delaware bought just six more new Yellow Coach Zs, and it gave major overhauls and refurbishments to 20 older coaches for further service.

R.C. Bowen Carries On

            When R.C. Bowen sold a number of routes and one firm (Young’s Bus Line) to the Southland Transportation Company of Delaware, on 01 October 1929, he still owned the South Texas Coaches, the West Texas Coaches, and the Lone Star Coaches (which last firm was a division of his West Texas Coaches), and afterward he continued to own them.  Each of those firms continued to run its own routes that Bowen had not sold to Southland.  Indeed, each of them continued to exist in these ways:

                  The West Texas Coaches continued to run its route from Cisco to San Angelo via Coleman and Ballinger – until Bowen transferred that route to his Lone Star Stage Lines (sometime after 1930).
                  The South Texas Coaches came out of dormancy and gained a route between San Antonio and Victoria via Cuero (which Bowen had previously sold to Southland but later bought back).
                  And the Lone Star Stage Lines continued to run its original routes, and it gained not only the route of the West Texas Coaches but also a route between Abilene and Ballinger (bought from O.C. Murphy and Sons).

            By October 1930 R.C. Bowen had bought also the North Texas Coach Company, the Wichita Falls Bus Company, and the Roberson Bus Lines, and he began to refer to all of his properties collectively as the Bowen Motor Coaches.

            Then on 28 May 1936 R.C. and Temple Bowen, along with Laurence Cox “L.C.” Eastland, formed the Bowen Motor Coaches, Inc., into which R.C. merged all of his motor-coach companies.  Eastland served as the VP and the public-relations manager of the new corporation.

            During the following years R.C. continued to develop his firm.  During that process he bought at least eight more companies plus more individual routes and certificates.  By 1943 he had grown his Bowen Motor Coaches into a large and successful enterprise covering much of Texas.

            On 18 December 1943 Maurice Edwin “M.E.” Moore, with the backing of a group of lenders and investors, bought the Bowen Motor Coaches and then used it as the basis of what he soon developed into his fast-growing Continental Trailways.  The Bowen Motor Coaches had already gained membership in the National Trailways trade association, so it was known also as the Bowen Trailways.  On 12 December 1945 Moore renamed his Bowen Motor Coaches as the Continental Bus System, and he referred to it as the Continental Lines, which became known also as the Continental Trailways.  Moore’s latter firm eventually became by far the largest member of the Trailways association (about 75 percent of it).  [Much more about Trailways in general and Continental Trailways in particular will become available in my forthcoming articles bearing the respective names of the National Trailways Bus System and the Continental Trailways.]

            Moore at first allowed the home office of the Bowen Motor Coaches to stay in Fort Worth, but he later moved it to Dallas (on a street still known as Continental Avenue).  That office building and the connected garage are now properties of the current Greyhound Lines, Inc. (GLI).  That’s why the home office of the Continental Trailways was in Dallas, and that’s why Fred Currey has long lived in Dallas, and that’s why the home office of the Greyhound Lines, Inc. (the second GLI) has been in Dallas (rather than Phoenix) since 1987.

            Thus R.C. Bowen made many major and significant contributions to the Southland (later Southwestern) Greyhound Lines, the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, and the Continental Trailways (as well as the American Airlines).

Paul William Tibbetts

            Paul William Tibbetts was another colorful and interesting actor in the early years of the motor-coach industry.  He was the son of a physician who moved his family from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1888, while Paul was 6 years old.  After graduating from high school Paul spent two years in Alaska, prospecting for gold.  Next he returned to Minneapolis and later bought a hardware store nearby in Wayzata and served at least one term as the mayor of Wayzata.

            He also bought an interest in the Wayzata State Bank and soon increased his holding to a controlling interest and then became the president of the bank (and remained in that post for five years).  About 1923, while Tibbetts ran the bank, one of his friends applied for a loan – to rescue his ailing bus firm – the Boulevard Transportation Company (BTC).  Tibbetts thought that the risk was too high for his bank, but he granted his friend a loan of $6,000 of his personal funds. 

            About 1924 the friend was unable to repay the loan with cash, so he paid by transferring a controlling interest in his firm to Tibbetts, who took over the concern, appointed himself as the president, rescued the firm, and on 19 June 1925 sold it to Wickman’s (and the GN Railway’s) Northland Transportation Company.  Thus Tibbetts entered the motor-coach industry.  [More about Tibbetts and the BTC is available in my article about the Northland GL, and even more about the BTC is available in my article about the Overland GL.]

            Tibbetts served as the second president of the Southland GL of Texas (starting in 1930, after Ekstrom) and then as the longtime president (and later as the chairman of the board of directors) of the Southwestern GL, which succeeded the Southland GL (starting in 1933).  He retired about 1955, and he died at age 78 on 22 September 1960 at his home, in Fort Worth.

Southwestern Transportation Company

            The Saint Louis Southwestern (SLSW or “Cotton Belt”) Railway ran, as the name suggests, between Saint Louis, Missouri, and many points in the cotton-growing regions to the south and southwest of Saint Louis – in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas – with branches to Memphis, Tennessee, to Shreveport, Louisiana, and to several smaller places, especially to the farmlands in Arkansas.  In Texas it ran through Texarkana to Mount Pleasant and thence along several lines to Sherman, Dallas, Fort Worth, Tyler, Corsicana, Hillsboro, Waco, Lufkin, and many intermediate points.

            As the highways became improved, many bus and truck operators popped up to compete against the Cotton Belt Railway, as against all other railroads throughout the US.  To defend against that rivalry, in October 1928 the SLSW Railway formed a subsidiary, the Southwestern Transportation Company, to run both trucks and motor coaches within its own territory, as did many other rail carriers in the US.  It also offered to buy its competitors, some of whom sold.

            For its passenger services the SLSW bought 15 coaches – eight White 54s and four Yellow Ws, all with Bender bodies, plus three Buicks with Flxible bodies.  It bought also three preexisting bus firms:

                  the Krummen Motor Bus Company;
                  the Smith Arkansas Traveler Company (in part);
                  and an entirely different Red Ball Bus Line.

            On 06 December 1928 the Southwestern Transportation Company started running these five routes:

                  between Little Rock and Gillett via Stuttgart;
                  between Stuttgart and Pine Bluff;
                  between Pine Bluff and Little Rock via England;
                  between Pine Bluff and Camden;
                  and between Camden and Texarkana.

            [Soon the Missouri Pacific (“MoPac”) Railroad followed suit by creating its Missouri Pacific (“MoPac”) Transportation Company to haul both cargo and passengers.  The MoPac Railroad ran in part between Saint Louis and various points in Texas, and it did so between Saint Louis and Texarkana along a route more direct than that of the Cotton Belt Railway.  The new MoPac subsidiary ran along bus routes different from those of the Cotton Belt except between Pine Bluff and Little Rock.  MoPac bought several of the preexisting competing motor-coach operations, including six routes of the Smith Arkansas Traveler firm, which the Southwestern Transportation Company had not bought.]

            Late in 1928 the Southwestern Transportation Company bought the Nunnelee Bus Line, based in Tyler, Texas, running on six radial routes connecting Tyler with Mount Pleasant, Longview, Marshall, Henderson, Lufkin, and Waco.  Walter Eugene “W.E.” Nunnelee had founded his firm in 1922.  He had consistently bought only Studebaker products, starting with sedans and progressing to Studebaker chassis with Miller and Fremont bodies.  The purchase included 420 route-miles, 21 coaches, and four sedans.  After Nunnelee sold his bus concern, he bought controlling interests in a furniture store and a funeral home.  Since 1919 he also served as an elder in the First Christian Church of Tyler until his death at age 85 in 1959.

            About the same time (as the purchase of the Nunnelee Bus Line) or shortly afterward, the Southwestern Transportation Company bought also (from C.M. Rogers) the certificate for the route between Mount Pleasant and Texarkana, thus closing the gap between its motor-coach operations in Texas and those in Arkansas.

            Early in 1929 the Southwestern Transportation Company bought a route from Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Malden, Missouri, about 89 miles, from the Mathis Bus Line.  That was then the northernmost highway segment of the new firm.

            During the following months the company extended its motor-coach service in steps – as the states and their contractors improved the roads well enough to make them reasonably passable by the coaches – all the way from Jonesboro to Mount Pleasant.  After those improvements became complete, then the Southwestern Transportation Company offered its continuous motor-coach service from Jonesboro to Mount Pleasant and thence onward on its diverging routes to Waco and to Lufkin.  Then the firm also started an extension from Mount Pleasant to Dallas via Greenville and Farmersville.

            By April 1929 the Southwestern Transportation Company had 1,126 miles of motor-coach routes, and it had bought 22 new coaches – 15 Yellow Ws, five White 53s, and two Studebakers.

            After fending off the rivalry of the outside highway carriers (and reducing the costs and expenses of the steam trains), the company turned next to the dual goals of improving its service and increasing its long-distance service.  In February 1930 it improved the gap between Mount Pleasant and Greenville by acquiring local authority in two steps:

                  It obtained by application the local rights between Sulphur Springs and Mount Pleasant;
                  and it bought yet another Red Ball Bus Line between Sulphur Springs and Greenville (on the way to Dallas).

            Further, in April 1930 it began to run between Stuttgart and Memphis, but it did so with interstate right alone (not intrastate) – because the rival MoPac Transportation Company already held the intrastate authority there.  Shortly afterward Southwestern began to run all the way between Dallas and Memphis.

            In June 1930 the Southwestern Transportation Company received five more Yellow Coach Zs and at least five White 54-As, with which the firm started two new through‑schedules:

                  between Dallas and El Paso, in direct competition (albeit without intrastate rights) against the Southland GL of Texas;

                  and between Saint Louis and Memphis via Missouri and Arkansas (on the west side of the Mississippi River) rather than via Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee (on the east side of the river), in direct competition (albeit without intrastate rights) against the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (on a route which in 1932, after the Pickwick bankruptcy, went to the Dixie GL).

            On 01 January 1932, as the Great Depression ground away, Southwestern made two adjustments to its through‑schedules:

                  It abandoned all its service farther west than Dallas, so in Dallas it redirected its westbound passengers to the Southland GL of Texas;
                  and it ended its Dallas-Memphis service at Brinkley, Arkansas, between Pine Bluff and Memphis, where it redirected its eastbound passengers to the MoPac Transportation Company.

Still, though, Southwestern continued to run its through-service between Saint Louis and Dallas via Memphis.

            During 1932 Southwestern converted one of its Yellow Coach Ws (with a Cadillac V‑8 engine) into a rail-inspection car for the benefit of its parent Cotton Belt Railway.  It used not only steel wheels but also a modified drivetrain supplied by the Four-wheel-drive (FWD) Company, of Clintonville, Wisconsin.

            Because of the success with the modified W, the Southwestern then likewise converted two Yellow Coach Zs (larger and longer than the W) to start a rail-bus service on the tracks of the parent railway between Pine Bluff and Texarkana.  The purpose of that project was to cure a problem with the scheduling of its only pair of daily passenger trains between Saint Louis and Dallas, which ran between Pine Bluff and Texarkana during unearthly and inconvenient times between midnight and sunrise.  The railcars would then run at consumer-friendly times.  The modifications included the installation of pilots (cowcatchers), sanders, toilets, and water tanks.

            However, before Southwestern and the Cotton Belt placed those railcars in service, the Cotton Belt Railway entered into a contract to sell the Southwestern Transportation Company to the Southland GL of Delaware (the owner of the Southland properties), so the modified Zs never went into that proposed service.

Pickwick-Greyhound Lines

            But that’s not all, as Ed McMahon used to say.  In January 1932 The Pickwick Corporation, all its subsidiaries, and its joint venture – the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines (jointly with The Greyhound Corporation) – failed in business and entered bankruptcy.  During 1932, with the approval of the court (that is, the judge) and under the supervision of the trustee in bankruptcy, The Greyhound Corporation wound up the business of the PG Lines.  At the end of that process Greyhound bought (from the trustee) a relatively small leftover remnant of the PG Lines and then renamed it as the first Western Greyhound Lines.  That remnant consisted mainly of these three routes:

                  between Saint Louis and Kansas City (the original route of the PG Lines, previously one part of the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines);
                  between Dallas and Tulsa (from R.C. Bowen’s Texas-Oklahoma Coaches, which the PG Lines had bought);
                  and between Kansas City and Los Angeles via Albuquerque (on a shortcut bypassing Denver, Colorado, which the PG Lines had started).

[More about the PG Lines is available in my article bearing its name.]

At Last – the Southwestern Greyhound Lines

            On 01 October 1933 The Greyhound Corporation, the parent umbrella Greyhound firm, took these seven steps (among others):

                  It created the Southwestern GL (SWGL), based in Fort Worth.
                  It merged the assets and operations of the Southland GL of Delaware and the Southland GL of Texas into the SWGL.
                  It divided the route of the first Western GL (formerly the PG Lines) between Kansas City and Los Angeles into two segments – split at Albuquerque – that is, one segment between Albuquerque and Kansas City and one between Albuquerque and Los Angeles.
                  It transferred the route segment between Albuquerque and Saint Louis to the Southwestern GL.
                  It transferred the route segment between Albuquerque and Los Angeles to the Pacific GL.
                  It transferred the rest of the assets and operations of the first Western GL (the remainder of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines) to the SWGL.  That transfer included the route between Saint Louis and Kansas City (the original route of the PG Lines) and the route between Denver and Albuquerque via Raton, New Mexico, which the PG Lines had developed.
                  And it bought the Southwestern Transportation Company (from the Cotton Belt Railway) and merged also its assets and operations into the SWGL.

            Soon afterward The Greyhound Corporation dissolved the newly empty corporate shells of the first Western GL, the Southland GL of Delaware, the Southland GL of Texas, and the Southwestern Transportation Company.

            The Greyhound Corporation then owned two-thirds of the common (voting) stock of the SWGL, the SP Railroad owned one-sixth, and the SLSW Railway owned one‑sixth.

            On 01 October 1933, on the day of the creation of the SWGL, it reached as far to the north as Denver, Kansas City, and Saint Louis; as far to the east as Saint Louis, Memphis, and Lake Charles; as far to the south as Laredo and Corpus Christi; and as far to the west as El Paso, Albuquerque, and Denver.  Those limits continued to define the extent of the territory of the SWGL for the rest of its life.

            However, during the Great Depression, while the SWGL reduced its route system somewhat – in response to its decreased ridership and its resultant decreased revenue and profit – it sold, leased, or abandoned several of its less profitable routes and branches.  The most notable such action was its leasing of its route between San Antonio and Pecos, which R.C. Bowen had started as the Old Spanish Trail Coaches.  The Southland GL of Delaware had already leased that route to the Kerrville Bus Company sometime in 1932 for five years, and the SWGL then repeatedly renewed the lease.

            Not later than 1934, after through-passenger overhead traffic recovered well enough on the Greyhound route between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis (originally the route of the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines), Greyhound introduced a shortcut route bypassing Saint Louis.  The shortcut ran between Springfield, Illinois, and Kingdom City, Missouri, via Louisiana, Missouri.  [Springfield is between Chicago and Saint Louis, Kingdom City is between Saint Louis and Kansas City, and Louisiana (the city in Missouri) is on the Mississippi River, just downstream from Hannibal, Missouri, and Quincy, Illinois.]  The Illinois GL (IGL) then ran between Springfield and Louisiana, and the SWGL ran between Louisiana and Kingdom City.  Afterward the IGL and the SWGL ran generally about three daily through-skeds in each direction through Louisiana, and they usually ran at least three in each direction through Saint Louis.  At one time in 1942, though, during WW2, those two carriers ran 10 daily through-skeds in each direction through Saint Louis (in addition to three daily in each direction through Louisiana).  [More about the IGL is available in my article bearing its name.]

            The Eastern Division of the Santa Fe Transportation Company [the Santa Fe Trailways, the motor-coach subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (ATSF or “Santa Fe”) Railway] ran (in part) between Kansas City and Chicago via Hannibal, Quincy, and Peoria, Illinois.  The Trailways route via Quincy was about 513 miles long; the Greyhound route via Louisiana was about 522 miles long; the Greyhound route via Saint Louis and Springfield, Illinois, was about 555 miles long; and the Greyhound route via Saint Louis and Effingham, Illinois, was about 565 miles long.  [In 1948 M.E. Moore’s Continental Trailways bought the Santa Fe Trailways and merged it into itself, and it renamed the former Eastern Division as the Continental Central Lines.  More about the Continental Trailways and the National Trailways Bus System will become available in my forthcoming articles bearing their respective names.]

            [During the 1980s, while I lived on North 24th Street in Quincy and taught at Quincy College, late at night I listened to a nightly Silver Eagle with its Detroit 8V‑71 engine as it whined up my street and out of town toward Chicago.  It was due to leave Quincy at 23:55.]

            Sometime in 1935 the SWGL sold its rights to the route between Amarillo and El Paso via Roswell, New Mexico, to the New Mexico Transportation Company.  The price of that sale was 45 percent of the buyer firm, which had recently become incorporated.  Afterward the buyer’s coaches bore the Greyhound livery and the signature greyhound dog (along with the smaller carrier’s own name).  Through the years Greyhound increased its partial ownership until it eventually reached 100 percent – and then, of course, merged it into itself.

            In May 1936 the SWGL made a contract with Robert Whitfield “R.W.” Lee, doing business as the LeeWay Stages, to buy his route between Amarillo and Albuquerque.  The ICC later approved.  [R.W. Lee, known too as “Whit” Lee, of Oklahoma City, also owned and operated a trucking firm, named as the LeeWay Motor Freight Lines.  He had begun in the transport industry in 1914 with a horse-drawn buggy, and he formed his truck line in 1934.  The LeeWay trucking firm soon became the largest one based in the Sooner State.]

            During 1934 the SWGL began to modernize and standardize its fleet by buying 17 new Yellow Coach Z streamliners.  Previously its first-line equipment had been a mixture of ACFs and Wills (from the Southland GL), Mack ALs (from the PG Lines via the first Western GL), White 54-As (from the Southwestern Transportation Company), and Yellow Coaches (from all three predecessors).

            During 1935-36 it received 40 more Yellow Z streamliners, then during 1936-39 it received a total of 125 YC Super Coaches (719s and 743s).  The last 10 of the 743s (in 1939) had two new (and innovative) features – GM 6‑71 diesel engines and Carrier air‑conditioning.

            In 1938 the SWGL bought 20 small Beck coaches with Chevrolet engines (and perhaps mounted on Chevrolet chassis) for use on minor routes and branches.  [Those Becks were nominally “used” (but nearly new) ones – because the SWGL had bought them from the Kerrville Bus Company (KBC).  Hal “Boss” Peterson, the owner of the KBC, was a devoted backer and promoter of the C.D. Beck and Company, of Sidney, Ohio.  Peterson bought large numbers of Beck coaches, used them lightly for short times, and then sold them to other carriers throughout Texas and elsewhere.]  After the small Becks arrived, then the SWGL disposed of the last of the equipment (other than the Yellow Coaches) inherited from the predecessor firms.

            On 09 May 1940 the SWGL made a contract with the LeeWay Stages to buy its route between Amarillo and Raton, on the way to Denver.  That was LeeWay’s last motor-coach route.  The ICC approved on 11 June 1941.  At Raton that route connected with the SWGL route between Denver and Albuquerque, which the Greyhound parent firm had transferred to the SWGL from the first Western GL (originally from the PG Lines).  That connection enabled the SWGL to offer through-coach service between Denver and Fort Worth, Dallas, Eastland, Waco, San Antonio, and Houston.

            During the 1930s the ridership on the motor-coach carriers in the Southwest (except on a few major routes) did not increase as well as the Greyhound officials had expected.  That result was due in part to the double whammy of not only the Great Depression but also the concurrent Dust Bowl phenomenon.  In an attempt to deal with that shortfall, sometime in 1939 the SWGL and the Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma (MK&O) Coach Lines entered into a joint service between Oklahoma City and Saint Louis via Tulsa, Joplin, and Springfield, each of which ran that route.  That segment had previously been the eastern end of the route of the Pickwick Stages between Los Angeles and Saint Louis (before the formation of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines and thus before the transfer of that segment to the PG Lines).  The two carriers coördinated their schedules, they began to honor the tickets of each other, and they closed about 20 duplicated stations in intermediate towns.  They continued that arrangement for several decades.  In 1939 MK&O served its main lines with several White 54-A streamliners and a few Yellow Coach 732s and 742s.  After WW2, however, The Greyhound Corporation allowed MK&O to buy a total of eight GM PD-3751 Silversides (five delivered in December 1947 and three in September 1948) for use on the joint route.  [The Silversides coaches were exclusive vehicles, available only to Greyhound and to other carriers with the specific consent of The Greyhound Corporation.  More about the Silversides is available in my article about the Scenicruiser.]

            Between June 1940 and March -41 the SWGL received a total of 44 Yellow Coach PDG-3701 Silversides in six small batches.  The first 14 of them bore serial numbers 002-015, right after the single display coach for the World’s Fair in Chicago (in 1939-40).  [After the fair the display Silversides went to the Teche Lines as its 486 (later as T-486), and on 31 December 1941 the Teche Lines (TL) became renamed as the Teche Greyhound Lines (TGL).  More about the TL and the TGL is available in my article about the TGL.]

            During January 1941 the SWGL received seven YC PG-2504 Cruiserettes (the competitive response of the GM Corporation to the Flxible Clipper), then in August -41 the SWGL received two PG-2505s.  [More about the Flxible Clipper (and other Flxible models) will become available in my forthcoming article bearing the name of The Flxible Company.]

            From May 1942 through January -45 the SWGL received a total of 87 “victory liners” – 20 YC PDA-3701s in May 1942, seven PD-3301s in September 1942, and 60 PGA-3702s from September 1944 through January -45.  [In August 1941 the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company built the last pre-WW2 Silversides – because the federal War Production Board (WPB) had cut off the supply of aluminum for the building of motor coaches – so that the WPB could divert the aluminum to the fierce construction of military aircraft instead.  However, the WPB allocated a certain amount of steel to T&C for the building of a limited number of coaches (because steel was then less scarce than aluminum).  T&C and the WPB reached a deal about the mix of the various types and seating capacities of the proposed coaches.  The design of the Silversides was not well suited to a direct substitution of steel for aluminum, so the engineers at T&C needed to find or make a quick way to build the steel coaches.  There was not enough time to go through a long process of creating and developing a new suitable design.  The quickest and easiest solution was to take the design of the Cruiserette range and to increase the dimensions.  So they did.  That allowed a move of the baggage compartment from the tail (as aboard a Flxible Clipper) into multiple underfloor bins.  Meanwhile, though, the T&C plant (in Pontiac) had already become reassigned to the building of DUKW “Duck” amphibious landing craft for the US Navy, so the production of the steel “victory liners” became shifted to an automobile plant of the Pontiac Division (in Pontiac).

            While war-related circumstances made T&C unable to produce enough coaches – or unable to produce them fast enough – the SWGL, along with most other carriers, found it necessary to turn also to other sources.  Twice the SWGL bought from the General American Aerocoach Company, of East Chicago, Indiana.  First the SWGL received 34 Aerocoach P-33 Mastercraft coaches between September 1941 and December -42.  Then later it received 35 more Aerocoaches, maybe P-37s, during 1944-45.  All of those Aerocoaches had International Red Diamond gasoline engines.  They did not last at the SWGL any longer than necessary, just as at the other Greyhound operating companies.

            Wartime needs caused at least two additions to the SWGL route map.  By May 1941 the company had started a short shuttle from Waynesville, Missouri (between Springfield and Saint Louis) into Fort Leonard Wood.  And sometime during 1942 it started service between Little Rock, Arkansas, and Camp Robinson, north of Little Rock.  During WW2 the SWGL owned and ran at least seven tractor-trailer “cattle cars,” perhaps in part on the route to Camp Robinson.

            During 1943 The Greyhound Corporation exchanged Class B (nonvoting) shares of common stock in the SWGL for the Class A (voting) shares that the SP Railroad and the SLSW Railway had previously held.  The representatives of the rail firms then resigned from the board of directors of the SWGL.

            Robert Finley, of Mexico, Missouri, apparently started in transport as a driver during 1927-29 in the YellowaY and YellowaY-Pioneer systems.  Afterward he ran the branch or feeder route between Kingdom City and Jefferson City (the capital of the Show-me State) under a lease from the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.  Later, after the PG Lines went through bankruptcy, after The Greyhound Corporation (under the supervision of the trustee in bankruptcy) wound up the business of the PG Lines, after Greyhound bought the remnant of the PG Lines and renamed it as the first Western GL, and after Greyhound transferred many of the former-PG routes to the SWGL, then the SWGL took back the leased route from Finley.  Then Finley created his Finley Bus Lines and began to run between Kingdom City and Hannibal via Mexico (about 75 miles), and soon he added a route between Mexico and Shelbyville, Missouri (about 52 miles).  [More about the PG Lines is available in my article bearing its name, and more about the YellowaY and YellowaY-Pioneer systems is available in my articles about the Teche GL, the Overland GL, and the Pacific GL.]

            On 25 June 1946 the SWGL incorporated a new firm, the Northeastern Missouri Greyhound Lines.  The SWGL owned 55 percent of the common stock, and the same Robert Finley owned 45 percent.  The new concern was sometimes known also as the Northeastern GL or the NEMo GL.  It ran the two older former-Finley routes between Kingdom City and Jefferson City and between Kingdom City and Hannibal.  The Finley Bus Lines kept the route between Mexico and Shelbyville and continued to run it.  Then in 1950 the NEMo GL extended its Hannibal line to Springfield, Illinois, where it made connections for Chicago and many other points beyond to the north, east and northeast; however, that extension did not last long.  [The Jacksonville Trailways already offered three daily skeds in each direction between Hannibal and Springfield via Jacksonville, Illinois, so that was strong and effective competition on a minor route with only limited passenger traffic.]

            Sometime in 1956 Finley and his sister bought the interest of the SWGL in the NEMo GL and then renamed it as the Northeastern Missouri Lines (merely by dropping the word greyhound), sometimes known also as the NEMo Lines.  The renamed firm continued to run until 1972, when one or more parties bought it and renamed it as the C&H Lines.  Then in 1977 the firm ceased to run and ceased to exist.

            Meanwhile, between June 1947 and November -48, the SWGL received a total of 133 GM PD-3751 Silversides from the GMC T&C Division of the GM Corporation.  [On 30 September 1943, having increased its partial ownership of the Yellow T&C Manufacturing Company to 100 percent, the GM Corporation merged T&C into itself and renamed it as the GMC Truck and Coach (T&C) Division, and it changed the brand name of its coaches from Yellow Coach to GM Coach.  Thus pre-WW2 Silversides (and other pre-WW2 coaches) are properly known as Yellow Coaches, and post-WW2 Silversides (and other post-WW2 coaches) are properly known as GM (but not GMC) Coaches (not until 1968, when the GM Corporation again changed the brand name – from GM Coach to GMC Coach).]

            Those in charge of the headquarters of The Greyhound Corporation allocated 133 of the 2,000 post-WW2 Silversides to the SWGL, but the SWGL still needed even more new equipment, so in 1947 its leaders bought also 15 ACF-Brill IC-41 coaches for regular service – plus three more special ones with toilets and ice chests for use in premium service between Houston and New Orleans in a pool with the Teche GL.  [More about the Teche GL is available in my article bearing its name.]

            As the SWGL continued to retire its pre-WW2 equipment, it needed yet more new replacements, so it bought 25 copies of the GM PDA-4101, which it received in April 1950.  [A PDA-4101 has the nose of a PDA-3703, the front bumper of a forthcoming 3704, 4102, or 4103, the tail of a GM city-transit car, and a transversely mounted GM 6‑71 diesel engine with an Austin angle drive.  Only one other Greyhound operating company (division or subsidiary) bought even one PDA-4101.  That was the Dixie GL, which bought 10 of them (and received them in March 1949).  T&C built 335 copies of the PDA‑4101.  More about the Austin angle drive is available in my articles about the Scenicruiser and about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines.]

            Between March 1951 and March -52 the SWGL received a total of 95 GM PD-4103s (often known by the derisive nickname of Henry J).

            Then in March 1953 a major event took place.  The SWGL received S-900, which was not only its first GM PD-4104 but also the first PD-4104 for anyone at Greyhound (or anyone else).  S-900 was PD-4104-003, the third 4104 produced (after a demonstrator for Mexico and one for Cuba).  The 4104 was known in the Greyhound fleet as the Highway Traveler, reusing the name of the GX-1 (a post-WW2 experimental coach, finished in 1948).  The 4104 introduced power steering, air suspension, panorama picture windows, and many other impressive features.  As soon as a 4104 arrived on any carrier’s property, everything else suddenly looked old and outmoded.  [Curiously, perhaps, S-900 was the only Greyhound 4104 that left the plant in Pontiac with not a signature dog on her nose but rather a red-and-silver nameplate identifying her as a GM Coach (the same badge that marked 4104s bound for most other carriers).  S-901 and her other sisters left the plant with the proper dogs on their noses, and S-900 eventually got one too.]  The SWGL received a total of 50 copies of the first version of the 4104s, delivered from March through August 1953.  [The Highway Traveler was also the name of the Greyhound public-relations magazine distributed to passengers, prospective ones, and other members of the public.]

            Then the gate of Heaven opened on 14 July 1954, and The Greyhound Corporation and the GMC Truck and Coach (T&C) Division of the GM Corporation presented the result of their latest and final joint project, another new King of the Road, the fantabulous new GM PD-4501 Scenicruiser, a result of years of planning, styling, designing, and engineering through collaboration between T&C and Greyhound.

            During a ceremony at the T&C facilities, in Pontiac, Michigan, Orville Swan “Sven” Caesar (one of the original busmen from northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, who was then the president of The Greyhound Corporation), along with various senior officials of both GM and Greyhound and other dignitaries, including the Honorable G. Mennen Williams, the Governor of Michigan, took part in the festivities accompanying the formal ceremonial delivery of the first group of the new coaches.

            The SWGL received 86 new PD-4501s, delivered from August 1954 through February -56.  The first one was PD-4501-008, and the last one was -782.

            The regular production run of the PD-4501 consisted of exactly 1,000 coaches, bearing serial numbers from 001 through 1000.  Deliveries took place from July 1954 through July -56.

            In 1956, after the production run ended, the GMC T&C Division pulled out the EXP–331, its handbuilt prototype of the PD-4501, rebuilt it somewhat, completed it in the standard seating configuration, revised the exterior trim to conform with that on the production coaches (including the removal of the round drumhead sign from the tail), gave it the serial number PD-4501-1001, and then sold it too to Greyhound as A-2267 (in the fleet of the Atlantic GL).

            That coach, EXP–331 or 1001, is now a property of Tom McNally, of Peoria, Illinois, who has announced his intent to renovate it.  [Tom owns also a preserved PD-4104 and another Cruiser, serial 771, which he has thoroughly and faithfully restored to the gold-stripe Super Scenicruiser livery, along with PD-3751-686, not yet restored, which was the first Silversides of the Southeastern GL, numbered as 3000 (later as M‑3000).]

            Because of the severe problems with the drivetrain in the Scenicruiser, which remained unresolved until 1961, Greyhound did not place an order for any more of the Cruiser (or any of the PD-4901 at all).  [More about that is available in my article about the Scenicruiser.]

            However, The Greyhound Corporation still needed more new equipment, so it began to place orders for a second version of the PD-4104, which included toilets, nicer décor on the inside, and several other improvements.  The last copy of the first version of the 4104 for Greyhound was P-5445, delivered in June 1954 to the Pennsylvania GL (PennGL), and the first 4501 (serial number 001) was P-5446, delivered in July -54 to the PennGL.  During the construction of the 4501s, T&C had continued to build 4104s at a reduced rate for carriers other than Greyhound.  In April 1957 the SWGL received the first 4104 of the second version delivered to Greyhound (just as the SWGL in March -53 had received the first 4104 of the first version for Greyhound and in June -40 had received the first Silversides after the single demonstrator for the World’s Fair).  The SWGL received 50 copies of the second version of the 4104, the last of which arrived in March 1958.  In July -60 T&C delivered its last 4104 for Greyhound, and in August -60 it delivered its very last 4104 (to a non-Greyhound carrier).  Greyhound companies had received a grand total of 1,985 of the 4104s.  By that time T&C had built a total of 5,065 PD-4104s.  That record, as the single most popular model, stood until the MC-9 surpassed it.  [In 1994, when the production of the MC-9 finally ended, the Motor Coach Industries (MCI) and its sister company, the Transportation Manufacturing Corporation (TMC), had built about 9,513 altogether.  More about the MCI and the TMC will become available in my forthcoming article bearing the name of the MCI.]

            The second version of the PD-4104 was the last new equipment delivered to the Southwestern GL.

            [More about the PDA-4101, PD-3751, -4103, -4104, -4501, and -4901, along with several other Yellow Coach and GM Coach models, is available in my article about the Scenicruiser.]

Central Division

            Meanwhile, on 01 August 1956, the parent Greyhound firm merged the Overland GL (OGL) into the Northland GL (NGL).  Greyhound moved the admin headquarters functions of the OGL from Omaha, Nebraska, to Minneapolis, which had long been the home of the NGL.  Thus ended the Overland GL.  [More about the OGL and the NGL is available in my articles bearing their respective names.  My article about the NGL includes also much information about the origin of the Greyhound system as a whole – because the people and events involved in the origin of the NGL are the same people and events involved in the origin of the larger Greyhound empire.]

            Then on 01 September 1957, in yet another step of consolidation, Greyhound further merged the Great Lakes GL (GLGL) into the NGL.  Greyhound likewise moved the administrative headquarters functions of the GLGL from Detroit to Minneapolis.  Thus ended the Great Lakes GL.  [More about the GLGL is available in my article bearing its name.]

            The parent Greyhound firm then renamed the newly expanded NGL as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation (known also as the Central GL (CGL), making the fifth of six uses of that name), the third of the four huge new divisions (along with Eastern, Southern, and Western).  [More about the six uses of the name of the CGL is available in my article bearing the name of the CGL, and more about the four huge divisions is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”]

            Thus ended the Northland GL, and thus began the fifth Central GL.

SWGL as a Division

            On 01 January 1959, having bought all of the remaining partial interests of the SP Railroad and the MoPac Railway in the SWGL, The Greyhound Corporation, as the sole owner of the SWGL, merged it into the parent firm as a division.

Merger of the SWGL into the Fifth CGL

            Exactly a year and a half later, on 01 July 1960, the parent firm merged the Southwestern GL into the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, known also as the fifth Central GL (CGL) – the third of the four huge divisions – which I describe above, in the section entitled “Central Division.”  [Again, more about the six uses of the name of the CGL is available in my article bearing that name (CGL), and more about the four huge new divisions is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”]

            Thus ended the Southwestern GL.

            For a short while Greyhound then referred to the “Central-Southwestern” Division and the “Central-Southwestern” GL, but it soon dropped the word Southwestern from that name.

Long-distance Through-coaches

            Because of the huge territory of the Southwestern GL, the SWGL ran a large number of through-coaches on long distances just within the limits of its own route system.  They included these:

                  between Denver and Kansas City;
                  between Denver and Houston;
                  between Denver and San Antonio;
                  between Saint Louis and Amarillo;
                  between Saint Louis and El Paso;
                  between Memphis and Dallas;
                  between Dallas and Laredo;
                  and between Dallas and Corpus Christi.

Pool (Interline) Operations

            Further, the Southwestern GL took part in many major interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in coöperation with other Greyhound operating companies) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies.  Those interlined routes of the SWGL were these:

                  between Chicago and Laredo;
                  between Chicago and Los Angeles;
                  between Saint Louis and San Diego;
                  between Saint Louis and Los Angeles;
                  between Saint Louis and San Francisco;
                  between Dallas and Minneapolis;
                  between Dallas and Atlanta;
                  between Dallas and Knoxville, Tennessee;
                  between Dallas and Norfolk, Virginia;
                  between Dallas and Washington, DC;
                  between Dallas and New York City;
                  between Dallas and Los Angeles;
                  between Dallas and San Francisco;
                  between Los Angeles and Memphis;
                  and between Los Angeles and New Orleans.

The coöperating Greyhound companies were the Pacific GL, the Overland GL, the Northland GL, the Central GL, the Illinois GL, the Teche GL, the Dixie GL, and the Southeastern GL.

Meeting Other Greyhound Companies

            During the 1940s and -50s the Southwestern GL met these other Greyhound regional operating companies (divisions and subsidiaries):

                  to the west: the Pacific GL;
                  to the north: the Overland GL and the Northeastern Missouri (NEMo) GL;
                  to the east: the Illinois GL, the Central GL, the Capitol GL, the Dixie GL, the Teche GL, and the Southeastern GL;
                  to the south: none.

            Further, the SWGL met also three affiliated regional carriers – not divisions or subsidiaries – independent firms in which The Greyhound Corporation held minority (noncontrolling) interests.  Each of them ran under its own name, but the coaches of each one bore the Greyhound livery (color scheme) and the signature image of a running greyhound dog.  Those three were:

                  the Crown Coach Company, based in Joplin, Missouri;
                  the New Mexico Transportation Company, based in Roswell, New Mexico;
                  and the Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma (TNM&O) Coaches, based in Lubbock, Texas.

Each of those affiliated firms coöperated with Greyhound (with scheduling, ticketing, and through-checking of baggage, and each of them took part in no-change through-routes with same-seat service aboard through-coaches.

Beyond the SWGL, the OGL, the NGL,
the GLGL, and the Fifth CGL

        Later, about 1969, The Greyhound Corporation reorganized again, into just two humongous divisions, named as the Greyhound Lines East (GLE) and the Greyhound Lines West (GLW).

            Even later, about 1975, it eliminated those two divisions, thus leaving a single gargantuan undivided nationwide fleet and a likewise undivided nationwide management and administrative organization. 

            [More about the continuing history of the GLI (all the way to 2023) is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”] 

Conclusion

          The Southwestern Greyhound Lines made major, significant, and lasting contributions to the present Greyhound route network.

Addendum

            At the end of 1930 Ed Ekstrom resigned (or took a very early retirement) from the presidency of the Southland GL of Texas, and he, along with his brothers Robert and Alex, moved from Fort Worth to San Antonio, where Ed (or two or three of them) either formed or bought the Yellow Cab Company of San Antonio, to which they gave their full-time attention.  [I first describe that above, in the section entitled “Back to the Southland GL.”]  Ed served as the president and general manager of the taxicab firm.

            Further, sometime later, apparently not later than 1939, the three brothers sold their interests in the cab company, and they moved from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, where they formed or bought the local city-transit concern, known as the Nueces Transportation Company (because Corpus Christi is the seat of Nueces County).  Ed took office as the president and general manager.  Ed took in also his third brother, his youngest one, Harold Leroy Ekstrom, from Hibbing.

            In 1966 the City of Corpus Christi bought the Nueces Transportation Company (NTC) from the Ekstrom family and renamed it as the Corpus Christi Transit System.  Harold had served as the chief dispatcher under Ed, and he continued in that same post under the city ownership.

            At the time of the transfer, in 1966, the NTC owned 55 pieces of equipment – 3 Yellow Coach TD-4005s – plus 52 GM Coaches – 2 TD-4007s, 17 TGH-3102s, 7 TDH-3612s, 10 TDH-3714s, 12 TDH-4512s, 3 PD-4104s, and 1 PD‑4106.  [Notably, the firm bought each of the four PDs as new ones directly from T&C.]

            Each of the four brothers died while living and working in Corpus Christi – Alex in 1943, Robert in 1944, Ed in 1967, and Harold in 1968.

Very Special Articles

         Please check also my very special cornerstone articles at this website:

                   “Northland Greyhound Lines” (NGL):  It tells not only the history of the NGL but also the origin and the early years of the overall Greyhound Lines, starting in 1914 in Hibbing, Minnesota.  [The people and the events involved in the early part of the story of the NGL are the same people and events involved also in the origin and the early development of the larger Greyhound empire (including its many divisions and subsidiaries).]
                   “Greyhound Lines after WW2”:  It describes:
                            the major mergers and consolidations (1948-75);
                            the changes in leadership at the top;
                            the move from Chicago to Phoenix (in 1971);
                            the sales of the Greyhound Lines, Inc. (GLI, in 1987, 1999, 2007, and 2021);
                            the purchase (in 1987) of the Trailways, Inc. (TWI, previously known as the Continental Trailways) and the merger of the TWI into the GLI;
                            the sad and regrettable deterioration in the level of service of the formerly great and formerly respected (but now utterly disgraced and discredited) Greyhound Lines;
                            and the latest development of Greyhound under the ownership of FlixMobility (a German firm) and under the oversight of Flix North America (with a recent Turkish immigrant as the chief executive).
                   “The Scenicruiser”:  It covers the background, conception, evolution, development, design, creation, production, rebuilding, repowering, and operation of the GM PD-4501, the famous, beloved, unmatched, and iconic Scenicruiser (an exclusive coach built for Greyhound alone, which served in the fleet from 1954 until about 1975).
                   “Growing Up at Greyhound”:  It tells about my growing up at Greyhound — as the title says — while my father worked as a longtime (37-year) coach operator for the Greyhound Lines, starting in 1940.

Related Articles

          Please see also my articles about the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, the Capitol Greyhound Lines, the Central Greyhound Lines, the Dixie Greyhound Lines, the Florida Greyhound Lines, the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, the Illinois Greyhound Lines, the New England Greyhound Lines, the Northland Greyhound Lines, the Northwest Greyhound Lines, the Ohio Greyhound Lines, the Overland Greyhound Lines, the Pacific Greyhound Lines, the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, the Richmond Greyhound Lines, the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, the Teche Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, the Greyhound Lines after WW2, the Tennessee Coach Company, and the Scenicruiser.

Bibliography

            Coachbuilt.com.

            Harris, Eva, Driving America for 100 Years.  Victoria: Friesen Press, 2017.  ISBN 978-1-4602-5290-1.

            Jackson, Carlton, Hounds of the Road.  Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 1984.  ISBN 0-87972-207-3.

            Jon’s Trailways History Corner, an online Trailways history by Jan Hobijn (known also as Jon Hobein) at http://cw42.tripod.com/Jon.html.

            Meier, Albert, and John Hoschek, Over the Road.  Upper Montclair: Motor Bus Society, 1975.  No ISBN (because of the age of the book).

            Motor Coach Age, ISSN 0739-117X, a publication of the Motor Bus Society, Paramus, New Jersey, various issues, especially these:

                  March 1954;
                  March 1955;
                  April 1955;
                  November 1955;
                  January 1964;
                  April 1966;
                  November 1966;
                  December 1967;
                  September 1979;
                  March-April 1991;
                  January-February 1992;
                  March-April 1993;
                  October-December 1996;
                  October-December 1997;
                  October-December 1999;
                  January-March 2001.

            Online schedules and historical data at www.Greyhound.com.

            Plachno, Larry, Modern Intercity Coaches.  Polo: Transportation Trails, 1997.  ISBN 0-993449-27-5.

            Rhodes, Jack, Intercity Bus Lines of the Southwest (a PhD dissertation).  College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1988.  ISBN 0‑89096‑374‑6.

            Rushing, Duncan Bryant, Wheels, Water, Words, Wings, and Engines.  New Albany: Fidelity Publishers, forthcoming.

          Schisgall, Oscar, The Greyhound Story.  Chicago: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, 1985.  ISBN 0‑385‑19690‑3.

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Posted at 02:56 EDT, Tuesday, 27 June 2023.

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