Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
© Copyright, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing
Preface
The Illinois Greyhound Lines was a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines.
Contents
Introduction
Origin
Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines
GLI of Delaware
The First GLI (the First Three GLIs)
End of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
Development of the Illinois GL
Greyhound Firms in Illinois
Through-coaches on Through-routes
Meeting Other Greyhound Companies
Merger into the Second Central GL
Beyond the IGL, the Second CGL, the GLGL, and the Fifth CGL
Conclusion
Very Special Articles
Related Articles
Bibliography
Introduction
The Illinois Greyhound Lines (IGL) was a relatively small (single-state) intercity highway-coach carrier and a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines (GL). It was based in Cleveland, Ohio, whence the Greyhound Management Company oversaw it. The Illinois GL existed from 1928 until -48, when The Greyhound Corporation, the parent umbrella Greyhound firm, merged it into the main undenominated second Central Greyhound Lines (the second CGL). [More about the Greyhound Management Company is available in my article about the Pennsylvania GL, and more about the Central GL is available in my article about that firm.]
Origin
In 1928 the Illinois GL became formed as a subsidiary of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, which was a jointly owned property of The Pickwick Corporation and the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) [before the MTC became renamed (on 06 February 1930) as The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T because the was an integral part of the official name)].
The original purpose of the new firm (the IGL) was to take over and to operate a route between Chicago, Illinois, and Saint Louis, Missouri, which had begun with the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines (but which Pickwick-Greyhound had most recently held).
On 19 July 1928 the GLI of Delaware (described below in the section bearing its name) transferred its only route (between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis) to the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines, and on 01 September 1928 Pickwick-Greyhound in turn transferred to the new Illinois GL the route segment between Chicago and Saint Louis, which the IGL then assumed and began to run. [And PG assumed and began to run the segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis.]
The joint ownership of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines (by Pickwick and Greyhound) is the reason for the hyphen in the name of that company. [More about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines is available in the next section, and even more will be available in my forthcoming article about that firm.]
Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
The Pickwick-Greyhound Lines had started in 1912 in San Diego, California, as the Pickwick Stages, which first ran in the Imperial Valley, between San Diego and El Centro via Ocotillo, all in California, and it grew soon and fast. It grew northwardly along the Pacific Coast as far as Portland, Oregon. Also it grew eastwardly to Phoenix, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas, and on 01 November 1927 it reached Saint Louis. Then sometime early in -28 it continued all the way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
During 1926-27 Carl Eric Wickman (the main founder of the Greyhound empire) and his associates gave much of their attention to the expansion of their own route network eastwardly from Chicago, but they nonetheless took note of the Pickwick Corporation and the activity of its Pickwick Stages – especially because of its rapid advance to the Midwest and the East. [The Pickwick Stages was then the largest intercity bus company in the US, and it was about twice as large as the MTC.]
Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines
Meanwhile, apparently in June 1926, the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines had started a route between Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, via Saint Louis. Purple Swan used Fageol Safety Coaches, so it used the words Safety Coach in the name of the carrier’s name – as did many others – with the pleased assent of the founding Fageol brothers (Frank and William). [The correct pronunciation of Fageol is “fad ́-jull,” rhyming with fragile and satchel.]
GLI of Delaware
The MTC, the original parent Greyhound firm, before it became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation, formed another subsidiary, the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Delaware (the GLI of Delaware), which on 06 December 1927 took over the Purple Swan firm and gave it the name of the GLI of Delaware. The MTC had created that new firm (the GLI of Delaware) for the specific purpose of taking over Purple Swan.
Already, though, on 26 January 1927, during the formation of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, Pickwick and the MTC had made an agreement to divide (between themselves) the route of the GLI of Delaware (first known as the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines). Thus in the next year, 1928, the segment between Chicago and Saint Louis went to the new Illinois GL, and the segment between Kansas City and Saint Louis went to Pickwick-Greyhound.
The First GLI (the First Three GLIs)
Let’s pause here to look briefly at the three GLIs of the early years:
The GLI of Delaware, described above in the previous section, was the last of the first three GLIs, sometimes called the first GLI (collectively) or the first GLIs (in the plural) – after the GLI of Indiana and the GLI of Ohio.
On 01 February 1927 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Indiana (the GLI of Indiana) started service on a new route between Chicago and Indianapolis, Indiana, and it made the first public use of the name of the Greyhound Lines. The GLI of Indiana existed during 1926-34, and it played a large and important part in the development of the western end of the Pennsylvania GL (between Chicago and Pittsburgh); in -34 Greyhound renamed the GLI of Indiana as the Pennsylvania GL of Indiana (the PGL of Indiana).
And the GLI of Ohio existed during 1926-30, running between Evansville, Indiana, and Indianapolis and between Detroit, Michigan, and Louisville, Kentucky, the latter of which routes (between Detroit and Louisville via Cincinnati, Ohio) later became a major trunk route (between Detroit and the South) of the Great Lakes GL – by connecting with the Atlantic GL and the Southeastern GL.
[More about the GLI of Indiana, the GLI of Ohio, and the GLI of Delaware is available in my article about the Central GL, and more about the Pennsylvania GL, the Great Lakes GL, the Atlantic GL, and the Southeastern GL is available in my articles bearing the respective names of those four firms.]
End of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines
Next let’s take a quick look at the Pickwick-Greyhound (PG) Lines, which figured strongly in the history of the Illinois GL:
During 1929-30 the PG Lines had reached its greatest extent, running at least 335 coaches along about 10,000 route miles.
Regrettably, though, by the summer of 1930 – during the early time of the Great Depression – after the frightful and massive stock-market crash on the infamous Black Tuesday (29 October 1929) – PG had begun to run into financial trouble due to its decreased revenue because of its sharply decreased ridership.
For that reason Pickwick-Greyhound began efforts to reduce its costs and expenses and then to reduce its route system and its workforce and facilities.
Unfortunately, it appears that PG had never – never – turned a profit during any year of its short existence – despite – or perhaps because of – its ambitious and dramatic expansion. [In that era, before the federal regulation of financial reporting to the investing public, it’s hard to be sure about the lack of profit, but the annual reports of both Pickwick and Greyhound (the joint owners of PG) seem to indicate the losses or the absence of profits from the operation of their joint property.]
Then in January 1932 the Pickwick Corporation (the parent Pickwick firm) filed for protection in receivership in bankruptcy in California.
Wisely, the officials of The Greyhound Corporation decided not to take part in continuing the operation of Pickwick-Greyhound.
Instead Greyhound, under the supervision of the receiver and with the approval of the bankruptcy court, wound up the business of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines. Greyhound sold most of the routes and most of the coaches of the PG Lines, but Greyhound kept for itself (lawfully, properly, and with compensation to the receiver) several of those routes and some of those coaches in the greatly condensed leftover PG.
Greyhound likewise took over the sole ownership of both the Illinois GL, which had previously been a subsidiary of Pickwick-Greyhound, and what was left of the PG Lines (likewise with proper compensation to the receiver).
On 05 April 1932 Greyhound renamed its leftover remainder of the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines as the first Western Greyhound Lines, which ran between Kansas City and Los Angeles, California, via Albuquerque, New Mexico – in time to complete a Greyhound corridor between Southern California and the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933-34 (the International Exposition of a “Century of Progress”).
Seeking efficiency in its operations, on 01 October 1933 the Greyhound parent firm transferred that route (and the other related assets) to two of its other regional companies. The segment between Los Angeles and Albuquerque went to the Pacific GL, and the segment between Albuquerque and Kansas City went to the Southwestern GL. Greyhound then dissolved the empty corporate shell of the first Western GL (the remnant of what had been the PG Lines). [More about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, the Pacific GL, and the Southwestern GL will be available in my forthcoming articles bearing their respective names.]
Thus ended both the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines and the first Western GL.
Development of the Illinois GL
Now let’s return to the Illinois GL (IGL), which came into existence in 1928, and which on 01 September 1928 took over (from the PG Lines) the route between Chicago and Saint Louis via Springfield, Illinois (one segment of a longer route, between Chicago and Kansas City) – the route which Purple Swan had started in -26, and which the GLI of Delaware had bought and transferred to PG in -27, and which PG transferred to the Illinois GL in -28.
Two months previously, on 01 July 1928, the IGL had already bought two other firms in northern and central Illinois:
the Pierce-Arrow Bus Line, running between Chicago and Effingham, Illinois, on the way to Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana;
and the Tri-county Transit Company, running between Effingham and Vandalia, both in Illinois.
Soon the Illinois GL developed even more routes (mostly north-south ones) within Illinois, including these two:
between Springfield (on the route between Chicago and Saint Louis) and Champaign (on the route between Chicago and Effingham);
and between Springfield and Louisiana, Missouri – not the state of Louisiana but rather the city of Louisiana, Missouri, on the state line between Missouri and Illinois and on a shortcut (thus bypassing Saint Louis) between Chicago and Kansas City, on the state line between Kansas and Missouri.
Sometime during the second half of 1948 the Illinois GL acquired the Black Hawk Motor Transit Company, based in Peoria, Illinois, which ran in Lincolnland along these routes:
between Freeport and Springfield via Sterling and Peoria;
and between Peoria and the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa (Moline, Rock Island, Davenport, and Bettendorf), along one branch via Kewanee and another branch via Galesburg (with two parallel loops).
All the routes of the Illinois GL were within its home state except entries into four destination cities on the Mississippi River and on the Illinois state line:
Dubuque, Iowa;
Davenport, Iowa;
Louisiana, Missouri;
and Saint Louis, Missouri.
Greyhound Firms in Illinois
During the 1930s – that is, during a time of the growth and development of the Greyhound empire and its route system – before the consolidations into fewer divisions and subsidiaries – three different Greyhound regional companies operated within Illinois:
The Illinois GL (the subject of this article) ran between Chicago and Saint Louis and along several other north-south routes in the northern and central parts of Lincolnland (as described above in the previous section).
The Pennsylvania GL of Illinois (the PGL of Illinois) – separate and different from the PGL of Indiana – ran two west-east routes in central Illinois:
between Saint Louis and Terre Haute, Indiana – on the way to Indianapolis and onward to Pittsburgh – while taking part in the route network of the Pennsylvania GL;
and between Saint Louis and Vincennes, Indiana – also on the way to Indianapolis (on an alternate route) and onward to Pittsburgh.
And the Northland GL ran in upstate (northern) Illinois along these three groups of routes:
between Chicago and Dubuque, Iowa, via Rockford, Illinois;
between Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and onward to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and to other points in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan;
and between Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin, and onward to western Wisconsin, the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) of Minnesota, the rest of Minnesota, and beyond.
Further, because Chicago is near both the northwest corner of Indiana and the southwest corner of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, three other Greyhound firms ran to and from Chicago via Gary, Hammond, and Whiting (all three in the northwest corner of Indiana):
the Eastern GL of Michigan (the EGL of Michigan), which in 1935 became renamed as the Central GL of Michigan (the CGL of Michigan), and which in 1948 became a major part of the Great Lakes GL, running in part to and from Detroit and other points in Michigan;
the first main undenominated Eastern GL (the first EGL), which in 1935 became renamed as the first main Central GL (the first CGL), running in part to and from New York City via Cleveland, Ohio, and Albany, New York (paralleling the touted “water-level route” of the New York Central railway system);
and the Greyhound Lines, Inc., of Indiana (the GLI of Indiana), which in 1934 became renamed as the Pennsylvania GL of Indiana (the PGL of Indiana), running in part to and from Indianapolis and points beyond, including Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, thus gaining connections with points throughout the South and Southeast (via the Atlantic GL and the Southeastern GL).
[More about the Great Lakes GL, the Central GL, the Pennsylvania GL, the Atlantic GL, and the Southeastern GL is available in my articles bearing the respective names of those five firms.]
Through-coaches on Through-routes
The Illinois GL took part in pooled (interlined) operations by running through-coaches on these three through-routes (into or through the territories of other Greyhound regional companies:
between Chicago and Kansas City via Saint Louis – previously the route of the Purple Swan Safety Coach Lines and the GLI of Delaware – in coöperation with the Southwestern GL between Saint Louis and Kansas City;
between Chicago and Kansas City via Louisiana, Missouri, on a shortcut (between Springfield, Illinois, and Kingdom City, Missouri), which bypassed Saint Louis – with the Southwestern GL between Louisiana and Kansas City;
and between Chicago and New Orleans via Effingham, Memphis, and Jackson, Mississippi – with the Dixie GL between Effingham and Jackson (via Memphis) and with the Teche GL between Jackson and New Orleans.
Meeting Other Greyhound Companies
In 1948, just before the Illinois GL became merged into the second Central GL, the IGL met many other Greyhound regional operating companies at various points throughout its route network:
In Chicago it met the Great Lakes GL, the second Central GL, the Pennsylvania GL, the Overland GL, and the Northland GL.
In Freeport it met the Northland GL.
In Dubuque it met the Northland GL and the Overland GL.
In Springfield and Effingham it met the Dixie GL.
In Louisiana, Missouri, it met the Southwestern GL.
And in Saint Louis it met the Dixie GL, the PennsylvaniaGL, and the Southwestern GL.
Merger into the Second Central GL
On 31 December 1948, in one more step to reduce overhead costs and expenses by increasing efficiency, The Greyhound Corporation merged the Illinois GL into the second Central GL.
Then on 22 June 1955 the parent Greyhound firm transferred those former-IGL routes from the second Central GL into the Great Lakes GL.
Next on 01 September 1957 Greyhound further merged the Great Lakes GL into the Northland GL (NGL), and it renamed the newly expanded NGL as the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, called also the Central GL (using the fifth of six instances of that name).
[More about those mergers is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2” – and more about the Great Lakes GL, the Central GL (both the second one and the fifth one), and the Northland GL is available in my three articles bearing the respective names of those firms.]
Beyond the IGL,
the Second CGL, the GLGL, and the Fifth CGL
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.
When the GLE arose, many more of the administrative functions became shifted to Cleveland, Ohio; later yet those functions migrated to Chicago, Illinois, then to Phoenix, Arizona, when, in 1971, The Greyhound Corporation moved its headquarters from Chicago to an impressive brand-new 20-story building in Phoenix (one which the Del Webb organization had just built).
[More about the continuing history of the GLI (up to 2022) is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2.”]
Conclusion
The Illinois GL made major and significant contributions to the present Greyhound route network, most of which contributions no longer exist.
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 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 Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Teche Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, and the Tennessee Coach Company.
Bibliography
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 book).
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.
Motor Coach Age, ISSN 0739-117X, a publication of the Motor Bus Society, various issues, especially these:
November 1955;
October 1972;
July-August 1990;
January-February 1992;
October-December 1999;
January-March 2001.
Online schedules and historical data at www.greyhound.com.
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Posted at 12:59 EDT, Wednesday, 22 June 2022.