Great Lakes Greyhound Lines – Bluehounds and Redhounds

Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
© Copyright, 2009, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing

Preface

The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines was a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines.

Introduction
Preview
Origin
Eastern Michigan Motorbuses
GLI of Ohio
First Central GL
First Ohio GL
Great Lakes GL of Indiana
Cincinnati and Lake Erie (C&LE) Transportation Company
Safety Motor Coach Lines
Motor Transit Corporation
Michigan Routes of the Second Central GL
Great Lakes GL as a Division
New Routes for the Great Lakes GL
Great Lakes GL in 1957
Merger with the Northland GL
Recap and Timeline
Beyond the GLGL, the NGL, and the Fifth Central GL
Conclusion
Very Special Articles
Related Articles
Bibliography

Introduction

The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines (Great Lakes or GLGL) was an intercity highway-coach carrier and a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines (GL). It was based in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It existed from 1941 until -57, when it became merged into the Northland Greyhound Lines (NGL), a neighboring regional company. The newly expanded NGL then became renamed as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation (the parent umbrella Greyhound firm), known also as the new Central GL (making the fifth of six uses of the name of the Central Greyhound Lines).

The names and organizations described in this article and the changes in them, especially with regard to the large number of similar and sometimes identical names, are the third most confusing and complicated ones in the history of the Greyhound Lines – third after the confusion and complications involved in the changes in the names and organizations related to the Central Greyhound Lines (CGL), including the six different uses of that name, and the Pennsylvania GL (PGL or PennGL). [More about the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL is available in my two articles about those companies.]

Preview

If you wish to see first a preview or overview of the history of the Great Lakes GL, please consider turning or scrolling down to the “Recap and Timeline,” near the end of this article. That can help you to gain a sense of the high points on a timeline before you dive into the details.

Origin

The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines resulted mainly from a combination of three large components:

                   the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses,
                   the first Ohio Greyhound Lines,
                   and the Michigan routes of the second Central Greyhound Lines (not a division but rather a subsidiary of The Greyhound Corporation with the second use of the name of the Central Greyhound Lines).

That third source, the second Central GL, is of particular historical interest. It had descended from, among other elements, the Safety Motor Coach Lines, in which Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom (an early investor and participant in the development of Greyhound in northern Minnesota) first applied the name Greyhound (albeit in a borrowed use) to the coaches and the companies and first applied the blue-and-white livery to the coaches.

[If you wish, please read my article about the differences between divisions and subsidiaries of corporations.]

Eastern Michigan Motorbuses

The first of those three major sources, the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses (EMM), started as a subsidiary of a railroad firm.

Late in 1924 the Detroit United Railway (DUR) Company, an electric interurban rail carrier, formed a highway-coach subsidiary and named it as the People’s Motor Coach (PMC) Company. The purposes of the new concern were to enable its parent firm to reduce its operating costs and expenses and to strengthen its competitive position against an increasing number of rivals operating buses on the developing and improving roads. [The DUR Company had already become involved in the first of its two bankruptcies and reorganizations.] The PMC Company came into existence on 14 September 1924, and service began on 01 October 1924.

During the following years the PMC Company developed an extensive bus system, mostly by the acquisition of preexisting smaller companies, operating along both suburban and intercity routes.

In one notable event in November 1924, the DUR Company bought the Detroit-Toledo Transportation Company from Ralph A.L. Bogan and Swan Sundstrom, two original busmen from northern Minnesota. They in -23 had begun to use (for the Detroit-Toledo firm) the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Blue Goose Lines.

[Bogan and Sundstrom in 1923 had used the same brand name (Blue Goose Lines) for one other bus company (the Gray Motor Stage Line, running in Wisconsin, between Janesville and Watertown); in -25 they used it again for a third firm (running in Indiana, from Indianapolis southwardly to Evansville and northwardly to Kokomo and soon onward to Fort Wayne and eventually all the way to Detroit).]

The DUR Company extended the name of the Blue Goose Lines and the image of a blue goose to the buyer’s entire intercity system (but not its city-transit system).

[Originally the route between Indianapolis and Kokomo had been a property of Sundstrom and George Watson, the latter of whom later became the president of the Greyvan Lines, which even later became renamed as the Greyhound Van Lines.]

[Incidentally, the life and the career of Ralph Bogan were varied and colorful: His first wife was Margaret “Peggy” Wickman, who was the daughter of Carl Eric Wickman (the main founder of the Greyhound empire). Bogan managed the Greyhound transit services at the World’s Fairs in Chicago in 1933-34, in Cleveland in 1936-37, and in New York City in 1939-40. During World War II (WW2) he served as a commissioned officer (a commander) in the US Naval Reserve, and he organized and operated transport services for the federal Office of Defense Transportation (ODT).]

[The two sellers of the three Blue Goose firms (Bogan and Sundstrom) continued as key players at Greyhound. Bogan later served as the vice president of The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T because the word the was an integral part of the official name) during the presidencies of both Wickman and Orville Swan “Sven” Caesar (who also had been one of the original busmen and collaborators of Wickman in northern Minnesota). Sundstrom later served as the longtime president of the Pennsylvania GL and concurrently as the vice president of the Richmond GL.]

Eventually all three of those Bogan-Sundstrom routes became segments of the growing Greyhound route network.

The DUR Company bought also other bus firms, including the White Star Motorbus Company, the Wolverine Transit Company, the Star Motor Coach Line, and the Highway Motorbus Company.

In September 1928 the DUR Company became renamed as the Eastern Michigan Railways (EMR), and the PMC Company, its highway-coach subsidiary, became likewise renamed as the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses (EMM); then in -31 the EM Railways went into its second and final (and fatal) bankruptcy and reorganization, although the EM Motorbuses continued to exist and to thrive.

The EMM continued also to acquire other firms, including the Southern Michigan Transportation Company, the Great Lakes Motor Bus Company, and the Grosse Ile Rapid Transit Company (which had begun in 1919 as the Grosse Ile Transportation Company).

Despite the lack of success of the parent EM Railways, by 1938 its subsidiary, EM Motorbuses, had become the largest and most profitable intrastate bus company in the Wolverine State. That, of course, made the EMM a prime target for purchase by the growing Greyhound Lines.

Then in that same year, 1938, The Greyhound Corporation, the umbrella parent Greyhound firm, bought a controlling (majority) interest in the EMM under the supervision of the trustee (and with the approval of the court) in bankruptcy.

However, the federal Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) did not at first allow Greyhound to exercise control over the EMM or to merge it into Greyhound – not until 1941, after a change in the membership (commissioners) of the ICC.

Because of the large size of the EM Motorbuses, its route network, and its operations, The Greyhound Corporation on 01 April 1941 created a new subsidiary (not yet a division), named as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, which later in 1941 took over the EMM.

Thus ended the EMM, and thus began the Great Lakes GL.

GLI of Ohio

The second of the three major sources of the Great Lakes GL was the first Ohio GL, which had run during 1935-41 between Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky, via Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati, all three in Ohio, plus along a detached route between Evansville and Indianapolis, both in Indiana.

This part of the story began on 08 November 1926, when the Motor Transit Corporation formed the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Ohio (the GLI of Ohio, separate and different from either the first or the second Ohio GL). Late in November 1927 the GLI of Ohio began its service between Detroit and Cincinnati, although it held only interstate rights along that route. Then in July 1928 it took over the Detroit and Cincinnati Coach Lines, which had used the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Sunny South Lines, running between the two named cities. Thus Greyhound gained the intrastate rights in Ohio, in addition to the interstate rights, along large parts of the route between Detroit and Cincinnati. [Greyhound had bought that firm, in a typical move, through its related acquisition company, the Automotive Investments, Inc., based in Duluth, Minnesota.]

[The seller of the Sunny South Lines was Walter Nisun, who had founded it, and who later, about 1934, sold to the Pennsylvania GL another of his motor-coach properties, running between Detroit and Saint Louis, Missouri, via Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, both in the Hoosier State. Nisun also operated the Detroit-Chicago Motor Bus Company, which failed in business in 1929. Later, to run between Chicago and New York City, he formed the Ni Sun Lines, which took over the defunct Nuway Lines (formerly known as the Safeway Lines, which was separate and different from a later Trailways member company with a similar name, the Safeway Trails, the Safeway Trailways, which long ran between Washington, DC, and New York City, and which in 1936 was one of the five founding members of the National Trailways Bus System). Nisun then obtained for his Ni Sun Lines an Ohio certificate (just before the deadline before the federal ICC began to exercise its new jurisdiction), and then, without operating Ni Sun, he sold it to the All American Bus Lines, which later became the American Buslines [sic]. That last firm later became merged with the first Burlington Trailways (another of the founding members of the Trailways association), and the resulting firm soon became bought and renamed as the Continental American Lines as a subsidiary (not a division) of the Transcontinental Bus System (the Continental Trailways), which in 1959 first enabled the Continental Trailways to reach from coast to coast, between Los Angeles and New York City.]

On 01 November 1928 the GLI of Ohio took over also the Southland Transportation Company, which ran between Cincinnati and Louisville, Kentucky. Harris Spearin, with the backing and financing of Carl Eric Wickman (and his bankers) in Minnesota, had founded the Southland firm in 1925, after in -23 Spearin had sold his White Bus Lines, running three routes based in Duluth, Minnesota, to Wickman’s Mesaba [sic] Motors Company, in Hibbing, Minnesota. [More about the White Bus Lines will be available in my forthcoming article about the Northland GL.]

Thus the GLI of Ohio completed its route between Detroit and Louisville, where, as well as in Cincinnati, it met the Consolidated Coach Corporation (CCC), which in 1931 began to use the name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (SEGL). [More about the CCC and the SEGL is available in my article about the SEGL.]

That was the GLI of Ohio (not yet the first Ohio GL).

Now let’s pause and look at some other relevant events:

First Central GL

Meanwhile in 1930 The Greyhound Corporation, the parent Greyhound firm, formed two new regional operating companies (as subsidiaries, not yet divisions) – the Pennsylvania GL and the first Central GL.

The purpose of the Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines was to provide an entity in which the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) soon bought a minority interest – a subsidiary in an area that coincided with the territory of the railway firm – so that the rail company could supplement its train service, substitute bus service in place of some of its unprofitable or marginally profitable passenger trains, and (for the most important factor) make available more of its track capacity (some of which had become scarce and in demand) for the more profitable freight trains.

Greyhound then redistributed the routes of the GLI of Indiana (described below in the section about the Great Lakes GL of Indiana) and the GLI of Ohio (described above in the section about the GLI of Ohio) to the two new companies (the Pennsylvania GL and the first Central GL). The east-west routes went to the Pennsylvania GL, as did the other routes paralleling or coinciding with those of the “Pennsy” Railroad. The remaining routes (that is, those between Evansville and Indianapolis and between Detroit and Louisville) went to the first Central GL, which came into existence on 04 April 1930. Then Greyhound dissolved the GLI of Ohio.

Thus began the Pennsylvania GL and the first Central GL, and thus ended the GLI of Ohio (although the GLI of Indiana continued to exist and to grow).

First Ohio GL

Just five years later, in 1935, the first Central GL became renamed as the first Ohio GL (separate and different from the GLI of Ohio) – to allow Greyhound to reassign the name Central to an even newer subsidiary (the second Central GL), in the Midwest and Northeast, a subsidiary in an area that coincided with the territory of another large railway company, the New York Central (NYC) System, a property in which Greyhound transferred a minority non-voting interest to the NYC System. The Greyhound executives wanted the new company to bear a name (Central) which suggested the kinship of the Greyhound concern with the related railway firm (New York Central), as in the case of the neighboring Pennsylvania GL and the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The first Ohio GL, which had previously been known as the first Central GL, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, later, in 1941, became renamed (again) as the Great Lakes GL of Indiana (the GLGL of Indiana), as a subsidiary of the new main undenominated Great Lakes GL.

[For several years during the 1930s the coaches of the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL bore, in addition to their usual Greyhound markings, the respective logos of the related railway companies – the oval or ellipse of the NYC System and the keystone of the Pennsy RR.]

The first Ohio GL continued to increase its route network, in Ohio and Indiana, mostly by the acquisition of preexisting carriers.

[For a short time, 1946-48, there was also a relatively small Greyhound subsidiary known as the second Ohio GL. It became created specifically to take over the Penn-Ohio Coach Lines Company, which, based in Youngstown, Ohio, had started in 1922, and which had then run in eastern Ohio and in nearby parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. On 01 January 1949 the second Ohio GL became merged into the second Central GL.]

The first Ohio GL, which ran in 1935-41, was separate and different from both the GLI of Ohio, which had previously run in 1927-30, and the second Ohio GL, which later ran in 1946-48.

Great Lakes GL of Indiana

On 11 June 1941, shortly after the creation of the Great Lakes GL (on 01 April 1941, to take over the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses), The Greyhound Corporation renamed the first Ohio GL as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines of Indiana (the GLGL of Indiana), based still in Indiana but as a subsidiary of the main undenominated Great Lakes GL, based in Detroit. Thus the main GLGL operated throughout most of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the GLGL of Indiana ran the routes to the south of Detroit (between Detroit and Louisville, between Evansville and Cincinnati, and between Evansville and Indianapolis).

{To obey an Indiana statute (one which required that corporations doing business in the Hoosier State be “domiciled” there), Greyhound, to conduct the route between Evansville and Indianapolis, used a series of corporations based in Indiana, first the GLI of Indiana (1927-30), then the first Central GL (1930-35), then the first Ohio GL (1935-41), then the GLGL of Indiana (1941-48). [On 01 February 1927 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Indiana (the GLI of Indiana) had started service between Chicago, Illinois, and Indianapolis, and it had made the first public use of the name of the Greyhound Lines.]}

In 1947 the GLGL of Indiana closed the gap between its two detached routes (the one between Detroit and Louisville and the one between Evansville and Indianapolis) by obtaining authority from the State of Indiana to run between Madison and Paoli, both in the Hoosier State, thereby also providing a new direct (shortcut) through-route between Evansville and Cincinnati. {In 1949 the GLGL of Indiana extended one trip each day in each direction on a new interlined pool route between Cincinnati and Memphis, Tennessee, in conjunction with the Dixie GL (later the Southeastern GL) between Evansville and Memphis. [More about the Dixie GL (DGL) is available in my article about the DGL.]}

Cincinnati and Lake Erie (C&LE)
Transportation Company

In 1945 The Greyhound Corporation bought a controlling (majority) interest in the Cincinnati and Lake Erie (C&LE) Transportation Company, which had begun in -23 as the highway-coach subsidiary of the Cincinnati and Lake Erie (C&LE) Railroad, an electric interurban railway in western Ohio, which had ended its rail operations in -39. The C&LE bus firm ran on a main line between Toledo and Hamilton (a suburb on the north side of Cincinnati), including several alternate loops, plus along branch lines between Dayton and Columbus, Dayton and Delaware (a city in Ohio north of Columbus), Xenia and Columbus, and Lima and Springfield, all in the Buckeye State; it also ran extensive local suburban operations based in Dayton. That purchase provided Greyhound with the valuable intrastate rights along even more route segments on which it had previously held only the interstate rights. Greyhound in 1946 received approval from the federal ICC and on 01 July 1947 merged its new property into the Great Lakes GL of Indiana.

[In the spring of 1955 the Nashville (Tennessee) Transit Company (NTC), in my hometown, bought several old 33-foot Greyhound suburban cars, 11 of the GM model TD-4007 (built in -45) – transit-diesel, nominally 40 seats (although those particular cars used a 37-seat variant arrangement, with forward-facing suburban-type plush deep-cushion seats), the seventh model in the series – with GM 6-71 engines and GM hydraulic automatic transmissions – from the Great Lakes GL, used previously in local commuter service, originally in the bus subsidiary of the C&LE Railway, in the suburbs of Dayton – numbered as G-7129 through -7139 (originally numbered as 180 through 190), renumbered at the NTC as 351-361. Of course, at various times I rode every one of those old GM suburban Hounds.]

On 31 December 1948 The Greyhound Corporation merged the GLGL of Indiana into the main Great Lakes GL; thus ended the GLGL of Indiana (after Indiana ceased to require domestic corporations for such operations).

Safety Motor Coach Lines

The last of the three major sources of the Great Lakes GL started in 1924 as the Safety Motor Coach Lines.

Edwin Carl “Ed” Ekstrom, an accountant, who was born in Ludington, Michigan, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1917 became an investor and participant in the Mesaba [sic] Transportation Company, based in Hibbing. [That concern was the first incorporated firm that led to the founding of the Greyhound empire; it replaced the Hibbing Transportation Company, which had been not a corporation but rather a partnership, consisting of Eric Wickman, Ralph Bogan, and others.]

In 1923 Ekstrom bought (from Wickman’s company) a controlling interest in the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company (running between Madison and Fond du Lac, both in the Beaver State), which in -22 Wickman had financed during its founding, by E.J. “Ed” Stone. Ekstrom then went to Wisconsin and took charge of his new property.

In the next year, 1924, Stone resigned from the firm that he had founded, then he went to work as a bus salesman for the Mack Truck Company.

Shortly afterward the Eastern Wisconsin concern became sold again – to an electric interurban railway and later (for the last time) to the Northland GL.

Sometime during the second quarter of that same year, 1924, Ekstrom, with the backing of Wickman, founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines, starting with two Fageol (pronounced as “fad-jull,” rhyming with “fragile” or “satchel”) Safety Coaches (hence the name of the firm, with the pleased approval of the Fageol brothers, Frank and William), running 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.

Ekstrom also started a detached route, farther north in Michigan, between Petoskey and Traverse City – which he sold later, about 1926, and which in -48 the Great Lakes GL reacquired (from the North Star Lines) – thus completing a direct through-route between Chicago and Sault Sainte Marie, in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, via Benton Harbor, Muskegon, Ludington, and Saint Ignace, all in the Wolverine State.

Ekstrom introduced the name Greyhound by which to refer to his coaches, and he caused that name to be painted onto them.

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 before long the logo appeared 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.

Ekstrom also used and promoted the slogan “ride the Greyhounds.”

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 he 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 founding the Southwestern GL, 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.

All that – in the context of the Safety Motor Coach Lines – took place while the Ford Model T was still in production, before Henry Ford in October 1927 introduced his second Model A. [The first Model A, built in 1903-04, was the first product of the Ford Motor Company; the second Model A, built in 1927-31, replaced the famous Model T, built in 1908-27.]

The Safety Motor Coach Lines continued as a subsidiary of the MTC until 23 January 1930, when it became renamed as the Eastern Greyhound Lines of Michigan (the EGL of Michigan), which in 1935 became renamed as the Central Greyhound Lines of Michigan (the CGL of Michigan), making the third use of the name of the Central GL, which in -36 became a part of the main undenominated second Central GL, a part of which in -48 became merged into the Great Lakes GL (thus becoming the third major part making up the GLGL).

Motor Transit Corporation

In a crucial move on 20 September 1926 in Duluth, Minnesota, Carl Eric Wickman and his collaborators formed a holding company, named as the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which on 05 February 1930 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

The MTC, not an operating company but rather a holding company, promptly began to buy controlling interests in operating companies in the highway-coach industry in a growing number of parts of the US.

The MTC, in its first purchase, on 15 October 1926 bought the Safety Motor Coach Lines, which in -24 Ed Ekstrom had founded, as described above in the previous section.

On that same day the MTC bought also a controlling interest in the Interstate Stages, using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Oriole Lines, running in part between Detroit and Chicago via South Bend, Indiana. That firm referred to its coaches as Oriole Flyers.

Ed Ekstrom then served as the first president of the MTC.

[However, in the next year, 1927, Wickman next sent Ekstrom to Fort Worth, Texas, where he took over two other firms – the Southland Transportation Corporation, which the MTC had started, and the Red Ball Motor Bus Company, which the MTC had bought – which two firms soon became major parts of the Southwestern GL.]

During that era many bus companies used the names of animals, often coupled with the names of colors, by which to refer to the buses, the companies, or both (such as Cardinal, Oriole, Blue Goose, Purple Swan, Blue Bird, Eagle, Jackrabbit, and Thorobred) along with colored objects (such as Red Ball, Green Line, Gold Seal, White Star, Silver Line, and Red Arrow) – and, inevitably perhaps, Greyhound.

Several early operators used the word greyhound. For instance, one firm, named as the Greyhound Bus Line, running in eastern Kentucky from Ashland to Paintsville and to Mount Sterling, was one of the carriers in 1928 bought by and merged into the Consolidated Coach Corporation, which began using the brand name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines in -31, and which became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Inc., in -36.

According to the best information now available, E.J. Stone, of the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company, made the first such use of the word greyhound directly traceable into the Motor Transit Corporation, for Stone had informally referred to his coaches as greyhounds, commenting on the resemblance of them to sleek, swift, slender, graceful hounds.

Many authors, observers, and bus historians have credited Ed Ekstrom, with his flair for marketing and promoting, with the first use of the name Greyhound in a way which became the name of the once-great company.

It’s true that Ekstrom took the use of the name Greyhound into the MTC when the MTC bought Ekstrom’s Safety Motor Coach Lines; however, it appears that Ekstrom had gotten that use from Stone when Ekstrom took over the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company.

When the MTC bought Ekstrom’s Safety Motor Coach Lines, Ekstrom and his company contributed to the MTC not only the name Greyhound and the image of a greyhound dog but also the blue-and-white livery (color scheme) used on Ekstrom’s coaches. [Ekstrom is said to have proposed the use of the name of the Greyhound Lines even before he left Wisconsin (with the support of his associates in Minnesota) to go back eastwardly.]

In 1928 the MTC bought the Southwestern Michigan Motor Coach Company, which had recently become formed – to acquire most of the routes of the Shore Line Motor Coach Company (a subsidiary of an Insull railway property, the Chicago, South Shore, and South Bend Railroad) to the east of Gary, a suburb of Chicago in the northwest corner of Indiana. Those routes consisted of one between Chicago and Detroit via Kalamazoo, Michigan; an alternate one between Chicago and Grand Rapids via Benton Harbor; and one between South Bend, Indiana, and Detroit (which extended and made connections with the railway route mentioned above). That last bus route, between South Bend and Detroit, no longer exists. The last rail route, between Chicago and South Bend, still operates in 2022, now under the name of the South Shore Line (as an operation of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, the NICTD).

In the next year, 1929, the Safety Motor Coach Lines, as a subsidiary of the MTC, took over three more preexisting carriers:

                   the Southwestern Michigan Motor Coach Company (described above);
                   the Interstate Stages (which had used the brand name of the Oriole Lines and had named its coaches as the Oriole Flyers);
                   and the YellowaY of Michigan (which had been a part of the YellowaY-Pioneer System, bought from the American Motor Transportation Company (AMTC), based in Oakland, California).

The MTC had bought all three of those firms through its related acquisition company, named as the Automotive Investments, Inc., based in Duluth, Minnesota. [More about YellowaY-Pioneer and the AMTC will become available in my forthcoming article about the Pacific GL.]

By the following year, 1930, the Safety Motor Coach Lines owned and operated a combined fleet of about 135 coaches.

Again: The Safety Motor Coach Lines had continued as a subsidiary of the MTC until 23 January 1930, when it became renamed as the Eastern Greyhound Lines of Michigan (the EGL of Michigan), which in 1935 became renamed as the Central Greyhound Lines of Michigan (the CGL of Michigan), making the third use of the name of the Central GL, which in -36 became a part of the main undenominated second Central GL, a part of which in -48 became merged into the Great Lakes GL (thus becoming the third major part making up the GLGL). [Please recall that the first two major parts of the GLGL were the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses (EMM) and the first Ohio GL.]

Next let’s take a closer look at those Michigan routes of the second Central GL – the ones that made up the third major part of the Great Lakes GL.

Michigan Routes of the Second Central GL

Starting in 1935, the Central GL of Michigan (the CGL of Michigan, previously known as the EGL of Michigan and originally known as the Safety Motor Coach Lines) and then soon, starting in -36, the main undenominated second Central GL (after the CGL of Michigan became merged into the larger main undenominated Central GL) operated all the Greyhound routes in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. That included the heavy traffic between Chicago and Detroit as well as the likewise heavy mainline traffic between Chicago and New York City via Cleveland, Ohio, including the route via Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany, all in the Empire State, paralleling the touted “water-level route” of the New York Central (railway) System. [The second Central GL ran also a large route network throughout Upstate New York, with a northward extension from Albany to Montréal, Québec, Canada, and an eastward extension from Albany to Boston via Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester, all the last four in Massachusetts.]

In 1947 The Greyhound Corporation finished reacquiring the remaining shares of the non-voting common stock in the Central GL that in -35 it had transferred to the NYC System.

No longer having a need or wish to maintain a subsidiary coinciding with the territory of that railway firm, Greyhound next reorganized some of its routes in the Midwest and the Northeast, seeking a more efficient operation.

Great Lakes GL as a Division

On 31 December 1948 the Great Lakes GL became a division, rather than a subsidiary, of The Greyhound Corporation, thus losing its separate corporate existence. Then Greyhound merged the GLGL of Indiana (the smaller Indiana corporation) into the main Great Lakes GL (as a new division of the parent Greyhound firm). Greyhound also transferred into the Great Lakes GL all the Michigan routes (including the ones reaching to Chicago) of the second Central GL (as described above in the preceding section). [By that time the State of Indiana had ended its requirement for domestic corporations there.]

The new division, the Great Lakes GL, took over all the coaches of both previous Great Lakes subsidiaries (that is, both the main GLGL and the GLGL of Indiana, both the main firm and the Indiana firm) plus all the coaches previously assigned to the Michigan routes of the second Central GL.

New Routes for the Great Lakes GL

During 1954-55, in connection with the merger of (what then made up) the second Central GL into the Pennsylvania GL and the reorganization and renaming of the enlarged Pennsylvania GL (along with the New England GL) as the new second Eastern GL, The Greyhound Corporation transferred three groups of routes in Illinois and Indiana to the Great Lakes GL:

                    first, all the Illinois routes of the second Central GL (formerly the routes of the Illinois GL) – that is, for the most part, between Chicago and Effingham (on the way to Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana); between Chicago and Saint Louis, Missouri; between Chicago and Louisiana (not the state of Louisiana but rather the city of Louisiana, Missouri, on the state line between Missouri and Illinois and on a shortcut, bypassing Saint Louis, to Kansas City, on the state line between Kansas and Missouri); between Springfield and Champaign, both in Illinois; and between Davenport, Iowa, and both Champaign and Springfield;
                    second, the route between Detroit and Indianapolis via Fort Wayne, from the Pennsylvania GL;
                    third, the important bridge route between Chicago and Evansville via Danville, Illinois, and Terre Haute and Vincennes, both in Indiana, plus a branch line from Paris, Illinois, to Paducah, Kentucky, from the Pennsylvania GL (a pair of routes acquired in 1954 with the purchase of the Southern Limited from the Fitzgerald brothers). [The Fitzgerald brothers were participants during the early years of the motor-coach industry. More about the Southern Limited is available in my article about the Southeastern GL, and more about those Fitzgerald siblings will be available in my forthcoming article about the Northland GL.]

Great Lakes GL in 1957

By 1957 the Great Lakes GL had reached as far to the north as Sault Sainte Marie, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; as far to the east as Port Huron and Detroit, both in Michigan, and Columbus, Ohio; as far to the south as Louisville and Paducah, both in Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana; and as far to the west as Davenport, Iowa, and Saint Louis and Louisiana, both in Missouri.

It then met the Eastern Canadian GL (in Saint Ignace, Port Huron, and Detroit), the Northland GL (in Saint Ignace and Chicago), the new second Eastern GL (in Chicago, Toledo, and Columbus), the Atlantic GL (in Columbus and Cincinnati), the Southeastern GL (in Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville, Paducah, Effingham, Springfield, and Saint Louis), the Southwestern GL (in Saint Louis and Louisiana), and the Overland GL (in Chicago and Davenport).

The Great Lakes GL took part in many major interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in cooperation with other Greyhound companies) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies – including these:

                    connecting Detroit with Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, via Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan; with Duluth, Minnesota, via Saint Ignace, Michigan; with Charleston, West Virginia; with Memphis and Nashville, both in Tennessee; with Mobile and Birmingham, both in Alabama; with New Orleans, Louisiana; and with Jacksonville, Miami, and Saint Petersburg, all three in Florida;
                    connecting Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with Minneapolis, Minnesota, via Detroit and Chicago; with Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, via Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis; and with Miami and Saint Petersburg, both in Florida;
                    connecting Chicago with Memphis, Tennessee; with New Orleans, Louisiana; with Laredo via Dallas and San Antonio, all three in Texas; and with Los Angeles, California, via Louisiana and Kansas City, both in Missouri;
                    connecting Buffalo, New York, with both Chicago and Saint Louis, both via Detroit and Saint Thomas, Ontario, Canada.

Merger with the Northland GL

On 01 September 1957, in another round of consolidation, Greyhound further merged the Great Lakes GL into the Northland GL (NGL), a neighboring company. Greyhound then renamed the newly expanded NGL as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation (known also as the Central GL, making the fifth of six uses of that name), the third of four huge new divisions (along with Eastern, Southern, and Western).

The administrative headquarters functions of the Great Lakes GL moved from Detroit to Minneapolis, which had long been the home of the Northland GL.

The Northland GL had reached as far to the north as Sweetgrass, Montana, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; as far to the east as Saint Ignace in Michigan, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and Chicago; as far to the south as Chicago, Dubuque in Iowa, and Sioux City in South Dakota; and as far to the west as Sweetgrass, Great Falls, Helena, and Butte, all four in Montana.

It had met (to the west) the Northwest GL, (to the north) the Western Canadian GL and the Eastern Canadian GL, (to the east and south) the Great Lakes GL and the second Eastern GL (formerly the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL), and (to the south) the Overland GL.

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

Recap and Timeline

Because the history of the Great Lakes GL is so complex, it’s helpful to review the high points (but, I hope, not too many small details not germane to the big picture) of that history – and to place it on a timeline – thus:

1924

Sometime during the second quarter of 1924, Edwin Carl Ekstrom, with the backing of Carl Eric Wickman (the major founder of the Greyhound Lines), founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines, starting with two Fageol Safety Coaches, running between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, both in Michigan.

Within months Ekstrom extended his route network to the southwest to Chicago, Illinois, and to various points in western Michigan and then soon throughout much of the Lower Peninsula of the Wolverine State.

Ekstrom introduced the name Greyhound by which to refer to his coaches, and he caused that name to be painted onto them.

In November 1924 the DUR Company bought the Detroit-Toledo Transportation Company, known as the Blue Goose Lines.

The DUR Company extended the name of the Blue Goose Lines and the image of a blue goose to its entire intercity system (but not its city-transit system).

a blue goose to its entire intercity system (but not its city-transit system).

During the following years the PMC Company developed an extensive bus system, mostly by the acquisition of preexisting smaller companies, operating along both suburban and intercity routes.

1926

On 20 September 1926 in Duluth, Minnesota, Wickman and his collaborators formed a holding company, named as the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which on 05 February 1930 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

On 08 November 1926 the MTC formed the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Ohio (the GLI of Ohio, which was separate and different from either the first or the second Ohio GL, despite the similarity in the names).

1927

In 1927 Wickman sent Ekstrom next to Fort Worth, Texas, where he took over two other firms – the Southland Transportation Corporation, which the MTC had started, and the Red Ball Motor Bus Company, which the MTC had bought – which two firms soon became major parts of the Southwestern GL.

Late in November 1927 the GLI of Ohio began its service between Detroit and Cincinnati, although it held only interstate rights along that route.

1928

In July 1928 the GLI of Ohio took over the Detroit and Cincinnati Coach Lines, which had used the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Sunny South Lines, running between the two named cities. Thus Greyhound gained the intrastate rights in Ohio, in addition to the interstate rights, along large parts of the route between Detroit and Cincinnati.

In September 1928 the DUR Company became renamed as the Eastern Michigan Railways (EMR), and the PMC Company, its highway-coach subsidiary, became likewise renamed as the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses (EMM). The EM Motorbuses continued to thrive and to acquire other firms.

On 01 November 1928 the GLI of Ohio took over also the Southland Transportation Company, which ran between Cincinnati and Louisville, Kentucky. Thus the GLI of Ohio completed its route between Detroit and Louisville, where, as well as in Cincinnati, it met the Consolidated Coach Corporation, which in 1931 began to use the name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines. [The Southland Transportation Company, in Kentucky, was completely separate and different from the Southland Transportation Corporation, in Texas, despite the similarity in the names.]

1930

On 23 January 1930 Greyhound renamed the Safety Motor Coach Lines as the Eastern Greyhound Lines of Michigan (the EGL of Michigan).

On 05 February 1930 the MTC became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

In 1930 the parent Greyhound firm formed two new regional operating companies (as subsidiaries, not yet divisions) – the Pennsylvania GL and the first Central GL. [The PennGL was not relevant to the history of the Great Lakes GL; the PennGL ran in an area that coincided with the territory of a large railway company, the Pennsylvania Railroad.]

Greyhound then redistributed the routes of the GLI of Indiana and the GLI of Ohio to the two new regional companies. The east-west routes went to the Pennsylvania GL, as did the other routes paralleling those of the Pennsy Railroad. The remaining routes (that is, those between Evansville and Indianapolis and between Detroit and Louisville) went to the first Central GL, which came into existence on 04 April 1930. Then Greyhound dissolved the GLI of Ohio.

1935

In 1935 the first Central GL became renamed as the first Ohio GL (separate and different from the GLI of Ohio) – to allow Greyhound to reassign the name Central to an even newer subsidiary (the second Central GL), in the Midwest and Northeast, a subsidiary in an area that coincided with the territory of another large railway company, the New York Central (NYC) System.

The first Ohio GL continued to increase its route network, in Ohio and Indiana, mostly by the acquisition of preexisting carriers.

Also in 1935 Greyhound renamed the EGL of Michigan as the Central GL of Michigan [the CGL of Michigan, previously (1930-35) known as the EGL of Michigan and originally (1924-30) known as the Safety Motor Coach Lines.

1938

In 1938 The Greyhound Corporation bought a controlling interest in the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses. [However, the federal Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) did not at first allow Greyhound to exercise control over the EMM or to merge it into Greyhound – not until 1941, after a change in the membership (commissioners) of the ICC.

1941

In 1941 The Greyhound Corporation took over the EM Motorbuses. Because of the large size of the EMM, its route network, and its operations, Greyhound on 01 April 1941 created a new subsidiary (not yet a division), named as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines.

On 11 June 1941 the first Ohio GL, which had previously been known as the first Central GL, became renamed (again) as the Great Lakes GL of Indiana, as a subsidiary of the new main undenominated Great Lakes GL. Thus the main GLGL operated throughout most of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and the GLGL of Indiana ran the routes to the south of Detroit (between Detroit and Louisville, between Evansville and Cincinnati, and between Evansville and Indianapolis).

1945

1947

1948

On 31 December 1948 Greyhound merged the Great Lakes GL as a division into itself, and it merged the GLGL of Indiana into the main Great Lakes GL.

1954-55

During 1954-55, in connection with the creation of the second Eastern GL (the first of four huge new divisions throughout the entire USA), Greyhound transferred a large number of routes from other regional Greyhound companies into the Great Lakes GL.

1957

Thus ended the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines.

Beyond the GLGL, the NGL, 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 (up to 2022) is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”]

Conclusion

The Great Lakes GL made a major, significant, and lasting contribution to the present Greyhound route network.

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.

Bibliography

Hixson, Kenneth, Pick of the Litter. Lexington: Centerville Book Company, 2001. ISBN 0-87642-016-1.

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, various issues, especially these:

                   November 1984;
                   November-December 1989;
                   July-August 1990;
                   April-June 1995;
                   October-December 1997;
                   October-December 1998;
                   October-December 1999;
                   January-March 2001;
                   January-March 2002.

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.

Walsh, Margaret, Making Connections. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000. ISBN 0-7546-0207-9.

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

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Posted at 15:56 EDT, Sunday, 05 June 2022.

Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing© Copyright, 2009, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing