Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
© Copyright, 2009, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing
Preface
The Dixie Greyhound Lines was a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines.
Contents
Introduction
Origin
Development
As a Greyhound Company
Merger into the Southeastern GL
Merger of the Florida GL into the SEGL
Merger of the SEGL with the Atlantic GL
Beyond the DGL, the SEGL, and the SGL
Preliminaries toward the Continental Trailways
Kinship with Federal Express
Conclusion
Very Special Articles
Related Articles
Bibliography
Introduction
The Dixie Greyhound Lines (Dixie or DGL), was an intercity highway-coach carrier and a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines (GL). It was based in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. It existed from 1931 until -54, when it, along with the Teche Greyhound Lines (TGL), a neighboring operating company, became merged into the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (SEGL), another much larger neighboring regional company.
Origin
The Dixie Greyhound Lines began in 1925 in Memphis, on the Mississippi River and in the southwest corner of Tennessee. It started as the Smith Motor Coach Company, when James Frederick Smith, formerly a successful truck salesman, received a used truck as a gift from his previous employer (John Fisher, a dealer, who owned the Memphis Motor Company).
Smith removed the truck body, built on the chassis a 12-seat bus body instead, and started driving the vehicle himself. He ran first between Memphis and Rosemark, northeast of Millington, in the north end of Shelby County, of which Memphis is the seat, about 25 miles from downtown Memphis to the north-northeast on state road 14, an alternate route to Brownsville. He soon ran also between Memphis and Bolivar, about 66 miles to the east on US highway 64 (US-64), on the way toward Chattanooga.
James Frederick Smith was the son of Captain James Buchanan “Jim Buck” Smith, who commanded steamboats on the rivers Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland – for several owners, including the Ryman Line, the property of Captain Thomas “Tom” Ryman.
[Tom Ryman in 1892 gave the funds for the construction of the Union Gospel Tabernacle, in Nashville, which became renamed as the Ryman Auditorium after the benefactor died, in 1904, and which served as the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 until -74.]
Early in his life, before age 20, young Smith discarded his first name, strongly preferring to be known as Fred or Frederick.
Late in 1909, after a devastating downturn in the waterborne trade, both the father and the son worked temporarily for Clarence Saunders, the famous wholesale grocer in Memphis, who was the inventor of the concept of self-service retail grocery stores, the builder and the owner of the Pink Palace mansion (later and now a museum), and the man who made and lost a fortune as the founder of the Piggly Wiggly grocery-store chain.
Development
By the end of his second year in business, Smith owned and ran 25 coaches; by the end of his third year, he had 60. [In the early years Fred operated in Memphis his own plant in which he built his bus bodies and mounted them on the truck chassis.]
During its first four years the Smith Motor Coach Company started two more routes – to Covington and on to Dyersburg, about 75 miles to the north on US-51, and to Jackson, about 82 miles to the east-northeast on US-70 – then extended three routes – the Jackson line to Nashville, the capital of the Volunteer State and in the center of it, the Dyersburg line to Union City, and the Bolivar line to Selmer and soon onward to the east on US-64, along the southern margin of the state to Chattanooga.
Even more growth came quickly, taking the firm outside Tennessee. In 1930 the Smith firm reached Paducah in Kentucky, Evansville in Indiana, and Saint Louis in Missouri; in the next year, 1931, it reached Birmingham, Alabama, on the way to Atlanta, Georgia, and Jackson, Mississippi, on the way to New Orleans, Louisiana.
[During 1928 or -29 O.W. Townsend had started a long branch line [of his Atlantic-Pacific (AP) Stages] between Saint Louis and Birmingham via Memphis, and then the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, in a copycat fashion, had started a service along the same route. Next Townsend sold his route to Pickwick, and he sold the remainder of his AP Stages to the Interstate Transit, Inc., thus resulting in the Colonial Atlantic-Pacific Stages. More about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines will become available in my forthcoming article about that firm.]
[O.W. Townsend was an ambitious and successful pioneer in the highway-coach industry, who founded and sold both the Cornhusker Stage Lines and the Atlantic-Pacific Stages, managed the eastern end of the Colonial Atlantic-Pacific Stages, bought the Teche Lines, developed it into the Teche Greyhound Lines, and served as its president and (later) chairman of the board of directors. More about him is available in my article about the Teche GL.]
As a Greyhound Company
In 1931 The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T because the word the was an integral part of the official name) bought a controlling (majority) interest in the Smith Motor Coach Company, renamed it as the Dixie Greyhound Lines, and appointed Frederick Smith as the president of the DGL (as a subsidiary of the parent Greyhound firm).
Later in that same year, 1931, Dixie reached as far north as Springfield and Effingham, both in Illinois and on the way to Chicago, thereby completing an important Greyhound direct through-route between Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana, via Memphis, by connecting with other Greyhound regional operating companies to the north (the Illinois GL, later a part of the Central GL, eventually a part of the Great Lakes GL) and to the south (the Teche GL).
{In 1932 Smith (along with J.C. Stedman, an entrepreneur from Houston, Texas) also founded the Toddle House restaurant chain, based too in Memphis. For the next several years the chain expanded through a number of states, opening as many as 50 new stores per year. [Toddle House in 1955 served as the pattern for the creation of the Waffle House chain, partly because one of the founders of the latter had worked as a manager for the former (even while secretly taking part in founding the latter).]}
In January 1930 Fred Smith drew a brother, Earl William Smith Sr., two years younger than he, into the management of the Dixie GL (and later into Toddle House as well). [Earl had worked, in both passenger service and dining-car operations, for the Frisco (SL&SF) Railway and the Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway and for the Fred Harvey organization in the hospitality industry in the Far West.]
Fred also served for a short time as a commissioned officer (a lieutenant commander) in the US Naval Reserve during World War II.
In 1948 Fred Smith suddenly died, and Earl succeeded Fred as the president of Dixie; then in -49 The Greyhound Corporation bought the minority interest of the Smith family. Earl remained as the president of Dixie (as a division of the parent Greyhound firm) until 1954, when it became merged into the Southeastern GL (called also Southeastern, SEG, SEGL, or the SEG Lines). [More about the Southeastern GL is available in my article about that Greyhound firm.]
By 1954 the Dixie GL ran from Memphis to Saint Louis, Paducah, Evansville, Nashville, and Chattanooga; to Florence and Birmingham, both in Alabama; to Springfield and Effingham, both in Illinois; and to Tupelo, Columbus, Jackson, and Vicksburg, all four in Mississippi; plus along branch lines to Jonesboro, Arkansas, and in West Tennessee; along with a link between Saint Louis and Evansville.
Dixie met the Southeastern GL to the east, the Teche GL to the south, the Southwestern GL to the west, and the Capitol GL, the Central GL, the Great Lakes GL, and the Pennsylvania GL to the north.
The DGL took part in major interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in coöperation with other Greyhound regional companies) – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies – between Kansas City and Memphis, Saint Louis and New Orleans, Chicago and New Orleans, Saint Louis and Nashville, Memphis and Detroit, Memphis and Cincinnati, Dallas and Knoxville, Dallas and Atlanta, Memphis and Miami, and Memphis and both Washington, DC, and New York City.
Merger into the Southeastern GL
On 01 October 1954 The Greyhound Corporation merged Dixie (along with the Teche GL, based in New Orleans, Louisiana) into the Southeastern GL, a neighboring regional operating company, based in Lexington, Kentucky. The three fleets of the three divisions became combined into a single fleet.
Thus ended the Dixie GL and the Teche GL.
Earl Smith, formerly the president of the DGL, then served as a vice president of the SEGL, although he chose to continue to maintain his office in Memphis rather than Lexington, the longtime SEGL headquarters – until he died (in 1955).
Merger of the Florida GL into the SEGL
In October 1957 The Greyhound Corporation merged also the Florida GL (FGL), one more neighboring regional operating company, into the Southeastern GL. The FGL fleet became merged into the fleet of the SEG Lines.
Afterward the SEGL owned 1,122 coaches, and it held about 15,500 route-miles. The SEGL renumbered the FGL coaches into the numbering scheme that it had created during the mergers of 1954.
The Florida GL had been based in Jacksonville, Florida. It ran throughout the Sunshine State – from Jacksonville, Lake City, and Tallahassee – through Orlando, Tampa, and Saint Petersburg – to Miami and Key West – especially along the East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami via Saint Augustine, Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Stuart, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale – including suburban, local, and commuter service from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and to Homestead (near the tip of the mainland on the Dixie Highway, US-1, on the way to Key West via the Overseas Highway. The FGL met the Atlantic GL and the Southeastern GL to the north. [More about the Florida GL is available in my article about that firm.]
Merger of the SEGL with the Atlantic GL
On 01 November 1960, in another round of consolidation, Greyhound further merged the Southeastern GL with – not into but rather with – the Atlantic GL (AGL), yet another neighboring operating company – thus forming the last of four huge new divisions, the Southern Division of The Greyhound Corporation (known also as the Southern GL, along with Central, Eastern, and Western). The Southern GL reached as far to the north as Springfield and Effingham, both in Illinois, Columbus in Ohio, Wheeling in West Virginia, Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC; as far to the east as the Atlantic Ocean; as far to the south as Miami and Key West; and as far to the west as Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans – from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico and into it.
Thus ended both the Southeastern GL and the Atlantic GL, and thus began the Southern GL (SGL).
The SEGL arrived with 873 coaches, and the AGL brought 400, so the Southern GL started with 1,273 coaches, and it held about 24,000 route-miles.
The Greyhound Corporation renumbered all the coaches in a new four-digit numbering scheme, which continued temporarily to use the prefix letter M. However, when the new PD-4106s began to arrive, in February 1961, they did not bear prefix letters, and the letters then started to disappear from the older cars. [The first 4106 for Greyhound was numbered as 6201 (GM PD-4106-002), assigned to the Southern GL.]
The Atlantic GL had been based in Charleston, West Virginia. It ran from Charleston throughout the Mountain State and to Cincinnati and Columbus, both in Ohio; Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania; Washington, DC; Richmond, Roanoke, and Norfolk, all three in Virginia; through the Carolinas; to Knoxville in Tennessee; Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah, all three in Georgia; and Jacksonville in Florida. The AGL met the new Eastern GL to the north, the new Central GL to the northwest, and the Southeastern GL to the west and south – along with the Richmond GL in Washington and in Norfolk and Richmond, both in Virginia. The AGL also had run extensive local suburban commuter service based in its hometown, Charleston, and in Portsmouth, Ohio; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Sumter, South Carolina; and [in conjunction with the Queen City Coach Company (the Queen City Trailways)] in Charlotte, North Carolina. [More about the Atlantic GL is available in my article about that firm.]
Beyond the DGL, the SEGL, and the SGL
When the Southern GL came into existence, in 1960, the headquarters functions became gradually transferred from Lexington, Kentucky, and Charleston, West Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia, and its suburbs – except the accounting department, which stayed in Lexington (for all of the SGL).
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.
When the GLE arose, many of those administrative functions became shifted from Atlanta 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.”]
Preliminaries toward the Continental Trailways
For a while during the 1930s Maurice Edwin (M.E.) Moore, from Jackson, Tennessee, worked as a field passenger agent for the Dixie GL (after first working in 1928 at age 18 as a ticket agent at a bus station in Little Rock, Arkansas). Sometime late in the 1930s Moore left the DGL, then he founded the Arkansas Motor Coaches, based in Little Rock, bought 16 Flxible (pronounced as “flexible”) Clippers, and started running them between Little Rock and Texarkana via Hot Springs. [A Flxible Clipper, a product of The Flxible Company, built in Loudonville, Ohio, was a small, short, modest, relatively inexpensive coach with 21-29 seats and a Chevrolet (straight-6) or Buick (straight-8) gasoline engine.] He soon extended from Little Rock to Memphis. In 1943 he bought the Bowen Motor Coach Company, based in Fort Worth, Texas, which had become a major carrier through a large part of the Lone-star State. [The Bowen firm was already a member of the National Trailways association and thus was known also as the Bowen Trailways.]
Thus began the Continental Bus System, which soon led to the formation of the Transcontinental Bus System, both based in Dallas, Texas, both using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Continental Trailways, which together eventually became by far the largest member company in the Trailways association. In 1969 it became a subsidiary of the Holiday Inns of America, based in Memphis, and in -75 it became renamed as the Trailways, Inc. (TWI) – which the GLI Holding Company (the new owner of the Greyhound Lines, Inc., bought in 1987. [More about the TWI and the GLI is available in my article entitled “Greyhound Lines after WW2,” and more about M.E. Moore and his Continental Trailways will be available in my forthcoming article about that firm.]
Kinship with Federal Express
James Frederick Smith, the founder of the Smith Motor Coach Company, was the father of Frederick Wallace Smith, who in 1971 founded Federal Express (FedEx), based in Memphis since 1974. [A part of the cash from Greyhound (in the Smith family trust fund) served as a part of the seed money for the formation, early operation, or sustenance of Federal Express.]
Conclusion
The Dixie 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.
Related Articles
Please see also my articles about the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, the Capitol Greyhound Lines, the Central 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 Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Teche Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, and the Tennessee Coach Company.
Bibliography
Backfire, the corporate newspaper of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, all issues, from January 1938 through February -56.
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:
August 1977;
July-August 1990;
April-June 1995;
October-December 1996;
October-December 1997;
October-December 1998.
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.
Trimble, Vance, Overnight Success. New York City: Crown Publishers, 1993. ISBN 0-517-58510-3.
Online schedules and historical data at http://www.greyhound.com.
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Posted at 09:15 EDT, Saturday, 04 June 2022.