Dr. D.B. “Doc” Rushing
© Copyright, 2009, 2022, Duncan Bryant Rushing
Preface
The Teche Greyhound Lines was a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines.
Contents
Introduction
Origin
Wheeling and Dealing
Background and Participation of Oliver William (O.W.) Townsend
Further Developments
Harold Francis Townsend
Henry Vance (H. Vance) Greenslit
Teche GL in 1954
Merger of the TGL into the SEGL
Merger of the Florida GL into the SEGL
Merger of the SEGL with the AGL
Beyond the TGL, the SEGL, and the SGL
Conclusion
Very Special Articles
Related Articles
Bibliography
Introduction
The Teche Greyhound Lines (Teche or TGL) was an intercity highway-coach carrier and a regional operating company of the Greyhound Lines (GL). It was based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. It existed from 1934 until -54, when it, along with the Dixie Greyhound Lines (DGL), a neighboring operating company, became merged into the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (SEGL), a much larger neighboring regional company.
[Teche (pronounced as “tesh”) is a word of French origin, a word (téche) for “snake” – due to a legend (about a large snake in the area), which the natives had told to the early French traders and explorers – from the name of the Bayou Teche in the swamp country in coastal Louisiana.]
Origin
The Teche Greyhound Lines began as the Teche Transfer Company, which became incorporated in Louisiana on 01 April 1920 to operate buses between Jeanerette and New Iberia, a distance of about 12 miles in the region west of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and southeast of Lafayette. The firm then began to grow in steps. In April 1925 it reached New Orleans, and in October 1927 it extended through Gulfport to Biloxi, both in Mississippi, on the way toward Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and the rest of the Sunshine State. On 18 February 1928 it reached Mobile, 175 miles to the east of New Orleans. In Mobile it met the Alabama Bus Company, which offered connections to Montgomery, Birmingham, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, Louisville, and beyond. [In 1930 the Consolidated Coach Corporation (CCC) bought the Alabama Bus Company; on 01 July 1931 the CCC adopted the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, and on 09 November 1936 it officially became renamed as such. More about that is available in my article about the SEGL.]
In 1929 the Teche Transfer Company became renamed as the Teche Lines, then in -32 it began to use the hyphenated brand name, trade name, or service name of the Teche-Greyhound Lines (with the consent of The Greyhound Corporation, the parent Greyhound firm), while retaining its own corporate name until -34. The use of the Greyhound name started after Teche entered into a through-traffic tariff agreement with Greyhound, and after Greyhound began to buy a minority interest in Teche, which interest continued to grow.
Wheeling and Dealing
In 1929 the Old South Coach Lines came into existence – to buy (from that same Alabama Bus Company) a short branch line, about 59 miles long, between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, both in Alabama – then extended about 93 more miles, by application rather than purchase, from Tuscaloosa to Meridian, Mississippi, then later onward to New Orleans via Laurel and Hattiesburg, both in Mississippi.
In the next year, on 17 December 1930, the Teche Lines bought the Old South Coach Lines, thus gaining a direct route between New Orleans and Birmingham, where it met the Consolidated Coach Corporation (CCC), which offered additional connections to Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, Louisville, and beyond.
[In that same year, 1930, the same Alabama Bus Company – which had sold its branch route from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa (to the Old South Coach Lines) – had become bought by and merged into the CCC – thus extending the CCC from Chattanooga to Mobile via Birmingham and Montgomery, all three in Alabama – through the entire length of the “Heart of Dixie.”]
[The Old South Coach Lines was entirely separate and different from the Old South Lines, which was a property of John Gilmer, who in 1925 had founded the Camel City Coach Company, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which became the southern half of the National Highway Transport (NHT) Company, based in Charleston, West Virginia, which in 1931 became renamed as the Atlantic Greyhound Lines (AGL). More about that is available in my article about the AGL.]
In 1932 O.W. Townsend bought a majority (controlling) interest in the Teche Lines. He had just moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, taking with him 25 nearly new Mack BK coaches, which he then transferred to his Teche firm.
Background and Participation
of Oliver William (O.W.) Townsend
O.W. Townsend, a native of Nebraska and a colorful, ambitious, and visionary man, began in the highway-coach industry on 01 June 1924 at age 30. He had previously worked as a traveling salesman, based in his hometown, Hastings, Nebraska, for the Burroughs Adding-machine Company, then he owned and operated an automobile dealership. He next founded the Highway Transit Company, which used the trade name, brand name, or service name of the Cornhusker Stage Lines.
[He started using the name of the Highway Transit Company more than two years before Carl Eric Wickman, Orville Swan Caesar, and their associates, in Duluth, Minnesota, on 20 September 1926 formed the similarly named Motor Transit Corporation (the original Greyhound umbrella parent firm), which on 05 February 1930 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation (with an uppercase T because the word the was an integral part of the official name). I wonder whether the name of Townsend’s Highway Transit Company influenced Wickman’s choice of the name of his firm as the Motor Transit Corporation.]
Although his full name was Oliver William Townsend, he consistently referred to himself in business as O.W. Townsend, although some of his friends knew him as Ollie, and some of his relatives and others knew him as Red.
The Cornhusker Stage Lines, based in Hastings, began by running from Hastings to Grand Island, about 25 miles to the north on US-34 and -281, using two touring cars. In the next month, July 1924, Townsend added two buses. Soon he added routes from Hastings to other points in Nebraska. Before long he began also a route between Hastings and Lincoln (the capital of the Cornhusker State), on the way to Omaha, Des Moines, and Chicago.
On 31 October 1924 Townsend started also a trucking service, which soon reached from Hastings to Grand Island, Kearney, Lexington, and North Platte.
Then in December 1924, using three Mack transit coaches, he further started a city-bus network of four routes throughout Hastings.
In 1927 the Cornhusker Stage Lines became one link in the chain of independent carriers that, acting separately but coöperatively, operated under the collective name of the YellowaY Lines (in a successful attempt to reach from coast to coast).
Townsend’s experience as one of the operators in that first YellowaY network ignited his imagination and led him to create a bold and far-flung plan, which he soon led and caused to function.
The Hastings Daily Tribune, the local newspaper, on 16 May 1928 broke the story with a front-page-wide headline and a front-page-long article, announcing the “world’s greatest bus line to center here.” According to the paper, Townsend had consolidated his Cornhusker Stage Lines with the owners of his counterpart carriers to operate a through-bus, same-seat, no-change service all the way between Chicago and Los Angeles via Omaha, Hastings, and Salt Lake City, using Hastings as the hub for his entire system. The report used the present tense, making clear that Townsend’s plan had already begun to operate, and it referred to the network as the YellowaY-Cornhusker system.
However, two major events took that arrangement completely out of Townsend’s hands. First a new corporation, the American Motor Transportation Company (AMTC), based in Oakland, California, quickly bought most of the other independent members of the YellowaY association, and then the AMTC began to operate its new network under the name of the YellowaY-Pioneer System. Townsend’s YellowaY-Cornhusker system had gone as far to the east as Chicago, but the AMTC network began to run all the way to New York City.
Recognizing that he could no longer control his creature, he too sold some of the routes of his Cornhusker Stage Lines to the AMTC (although he retained several other routes, which did not fit well into the plans of the AMTC).
On 11 September 1928 a YellowaY-Pioneer coach completed the first regularly scheduled coast-to-coast bus trip in the US, from Los Angeles to New York City, by a single operating company.
The second major event took place in the next year, 1929, when the Motor Transit Corporation (MTC) bought the YellowaY-Pioneer System.
On 05 February 1930 the MTC became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation, and Greyhound merged YellowaY-Pioneer into itself.
On 01 July 1929 Townsend sold the intercity remainder of his Cornhusker Stage Lines (but not his city-transit operation in Hastings), including 29 Mack AB parlor coaches, to the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad. The railway firm merged Cornhusker into another of its subsidiaries, the Interstate Transit Lines, which in 1943 began to operate as the eastern half of the Overland Greyhound Lines (OGL). [The Union Pacific Stages, another UP property, operated as the western half of the OGL. More about that will be available in my forthcoming article about the OGL.]
[In 1952 The Greyhound Corporation bought all the remaining stock outstanding in both the Interstate Transit Lines and the UP Stages, which had previously used the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Overland GL, and Greyhound then merged those two firms together as a division of the parent Greyhound firm, which division became likewise known as the Overland GL. Thus a piece of the former Cornhusker Stage Lines became a small part of the Greyhound Lines.]
Even before Townsend sold the remainder of Cornhusker to the UP Railroad, he started (likely late in 1928) another carrier – the Atlantic-Pacific (AP) Stages, running between Saint Louis, Missouri, and Los Angeles, California, via Kansas City, on the state line between Kansas and Missouri; Denver, Colorado; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1930 he sold it to the Interstate Transit, Inc., a completely separate and different firm (different from the Interstate Transit Lines) with a confusingly similar name, operating as the Colonial Stages. Afterward the last company then became renamed as the Colonial Atlantic-Pacific Stages (CAPS), and it succumbed in 1932 during, and as a casualty of, the Great Depression.
[During 1928 or -29 Townsend started also a long branch line (of his AP Stages) between Saint Louis and Birmingham, Alabama, via Memphis, Tennessee, and then the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines, in a copycat fashion, started a service along the same route. Next Townsend sold his branch route to Pickwick, and he sold the much larger remainder of his AP Stages to the Interstate Transit, Inc., as described above in this section. More about the Pickwick-Greyhound Lines will be available in my forthcoming article about that firm.]
In 1931 and -32 Townsend lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, acting as the regional manager of the eastern end of the CAPS (on behalf of the receiver, who had taken over the firm).
After the second and final failure of the CAPS (first in receivership and then in bankruptcy), Townsend moved to New Orleans, lawfully buying and taking with him 25 of the newer coaches, Mack BKs; then he bought a controlling interest in the Teche Lines (TL), and he started making deals with The Greyhound Corporation.
Further Developments
On 29 June 1932 the Teche Lines bought the Hammond Stage Lines and its routes, including the important one between New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi, where Teche met the Dixie Greyhound Lines (DGL), which offered connections to Memphis, Nashville, Saint Louis, Chicago, Evansville, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and beyond.
John Gilmer’s Old South Lines in 1934 bought from the Hood Coach Lines a route between Montgomery, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, including an alternate loop through Columbus, Georgia. On that route Hood had begun its first service (in 1930, between Atlanta and Columbus, then, in -33, onward to Montgomery), and it had next unsuccessfully tried to expand by running additional routes.
Hood in November 1934 sold also the latter other routes – to the Consolidated Coach Corporation and the Union Bus Company, acting jointly – one route between Atlanta and Macon and one between Macon and Jacksonville via Waycross, Georgia, both going to Consolidated, which in 1931 became known as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines – plus a third route, between Macon and Savannah, both in Georgia, going to Union, which in -41 became bought by and merged into the SEGL. Those steps provided to Consolidated and Union, and therefore later to Greyhound, not only a new route between Macon and Savannah and a parallel alternate route between Atlanta and Macon but also a quicker alternate route between Macon and Jacksonville (about 50 miles shorter than the older route via Valdosta, Georgia, and Lake City, Florida).
After that last sale, the Hood firm, no longer holding any other route, went out of business.
On 01 October 1935 the Capital Motor Lines (which later became known as the Capital Trailways) sold to the Teche GL several routes in south Alabama, including these two strategic and important ones:
the one between Mobile and Montgomery, which extended toward Atlanta, where it later met the Atlantic GL and thus made connections to the Carolinas, the Northeast, and the Atlantic Seaboard;
and the one between Mobile and Marianna, Florida, which enabled Teche to meet the Union Bus Company and thus make connections to Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami, Saint Petersburg, the rest of the Sunshine State, and the Atlantic Seaboard.
In 1935 the Atlantic Greyhound Lines bought the Old South routes to Atlanta from Charlotte, North Carolina, and from Columbia, South Carolina, thus preparing to establish connections in Atlanta with the Teche GL and the Southeastern GL. [More about that is available in my article about the AGL.]
In February 1936 Teche bought also the Old South route between Montgomery and Atlanta (with the loop through Columbus), thus completing its direct route between New Orleans and Atlanta and meeting again the Atlantic GL and the Southeastern GL and their connections onward.
During 1939 The Greyhound Corporation, the parent umbrella Greyhound firm, finished buying all the remaining minority interest in the Teche GL; then on 31 December 1941 the parent firm merged Teche into itself as a division. [In my separate article, entitled “Division versus Subsidiary,” I discuss the differences between divisions and subsidiaries of corporations.]
Townsend continued for 17 years as the president of the TGL, even after it became a division of its parent firm (on 31 December 1941), and then in -49 he became instead the chairman of the board of directors of the TGL. On 01 October 1954, however, he retired, when Greyhound merged the TGL, along with the DGL, into the SEGL.
In the evening of Sunday, 30 October 1955, Townsend collapsed and died of a heart attack in New Orleans while visiting (to play cards) in the home of a friend, who was a physician. At age 61 O.W. died one year and one month after he retired from the chairmanship of the board of the TGL.
According to an obituary for Townsend in The Times-Picayune, in New Orleans, O.W. had developed and introduced accounting tools and techniques for the calculation of the sharing of costs and expenses for the use of interlined through-coaches running through the territories of two or more operating companies and for settling for those charges among the various carriers involved. Some other companies (Greyhound and otherwise) also adopted his systems.
Harold Francis Townsend
O.W. Townsend had a brother, Harold Francis Townsend, who also worked in transit management. He served as a manager for the SEG Lines in Birmingham, Alabama, starting in 1930, then in February 1942 the SEGL transferred him from Birmingham to its headquarters, in Lexington, Kentucky.
However, about 1943 an official of the Atomic Energy Commission (of the US) contacted Harold and then hired him to move to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the new “Secret City,” where he next served as the director of the American Industrial Transit Company (AITC), an agency of the federal government on the compound of the “Clinton Engineer Works” (CEW). Harold created the bus system and then managed it. The AITC provided bus services, including school buses, for the workers and residents, throughout Oak Ridge (the new city) and into surrounding areas. The Tennessee Coach Company, however, provided commuter service between Oak Ridge and Knoxville (the nearest relatively large city).
[The CEW was a huge military installation (consisting of about 58,900 acres) of the Corps of Engineers of the US Army, which provided facilities for the Manhattan Project – which in turn produced enriched uranium for use in the world’s first nuclear weapons, including the two dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which persuaded the Japanese officials to surrender and thus to end World War Two. At the peak of the CEW, in May 1945, about 82,000 people worked there, and about 75,000 people (many of the workers and many of their families, including Harold and his family) lived inside the perimeter fence of the military compound.]
Harold remained in that job until he retired, at age 54 and in 1957, when he, along with his wife and their daughter, moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
According to an obituary for Harold in the Fort Lauderdale News, both Harold and his brother O.W. had acted as “pioneers” in the motor-coach industry.
Further, that item in the newspaper said that Harold had worked in the business in Hastings, Duluth, Chicago, Saint Louis, and New Orleans – all before he hired on as a manager for the SEGL in Birmingham.
Also, an item in the Beatrice (Nebraska) News reported on 15 July 1926 that Harold had returned to “his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” after a visit in Beatrice with his widowed mother.
The pattern and sequence of those cities strongly suggest his movement as he climbed the career ladder in the bus business during those early years. It appears that Harold may have worked first in 1924 or -25 (at age 21 or 22) in Hastings (after his studies at the Hastings College) for O.W. and his Cornhusker Stage Lines, then about 1926 in Minneapolis for the Northland Transportation Company (a precursor of the Northland Greyhound Lines), then about 1927 or -28 in Duluth and Chicago for the Motor Transit Corporation (which on 05 February 1930 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation), then about 1929 or -30 in Saint Louis for O.W. and his AP Stages, then for a while early in 1930 in New Orleans (after O.W. sold his AP Stages and moved to Philadelphia) – maybe on O.W.’s behalf to check out New Orleans as a potential place for O.W. in the future (exactly where O.W. moved, in -32, after he left Philadelphia). Then later in 1930 Harold, at age 27, hired on as a manager for the CCC in Birmingham. [In 1931 the CCC began to use the brand name of the Southeastern GL, and in -36 it became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines.] This interpretation may be badly wrong, but it certainly fits the information in the newspapers. [More about the Northland GL will become available in my forthcoming article about that Greyhound firm.]
[During 1926 both Harold and Wickman were in Minneapolis, and it’s quite possible and understandable that Harold may well have gone there to work for Wickman in Minneapolis (and later in both Duluth and Chicago). On 19 December 1924 Carl Eric Wickman and his financiers in Duluth created and incorporated the Northland Transportation Company (NTC), which functioned as a precursor of the Northland Greyhound Lines. Then on 15 May 1925 the Great Northern Railway bought the NTC and hired Wickman to manage it from a headquarters in Minneapolis. However, on 01 August 1929 the railroad company sold the NTC to Wickman’s Motor Transit Corporation (MTC), which on 05 February 1930 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation. The MTC then placed the NTC (as a subsidiary) under a new holding company, which it named as the Northland Greyhound Lines (NGL); in 1935 the MTC merged the NTC into the NGL. Again, more about the Northland GL will become available in my forthcoming article about the NGL.]
[In Duluth on 20 September 1926 Carl Eric Wickman, Orville Swan Caesar, and their associates formed the Motor Transit Corporation (later known as The Greyhound Corporation); soon they moved their operating headquarters to Chicago, and later they moved also their administrative headquarters to Chicago.]
Thus it appears that Harold Townsend may have worked alongside Wickman, Caesar, and their associates in Minneapolis, Duluth, and Chicago during the start of the Greyhound empire.
Harold died in Fort Lauderdale at age 74 on 27 May 1977, after 20 years of retirement in the Sunshine State.
Henry Vance (H. Vance) Greenslit
In 1932 Henry Vance Greenslit (known usually as H. Vance Greenslit) joined the management of the Teche Lines (by the invitation of O.W. Townsend), and he then long served as an executive in not only the TL and the TGL but also elsewhere in the Greyhound system. [During a short time in 1930 in Saint Louis, Greenslit had served as the corporate secretary of Townsend’s AP Stages.] Greenslit in New Orleans first served as the vice president of the TL and then the TGL. In -49 Townsend became the chairman of the board of directors of the TGL, and Greenslit succeeded Townsend as the president. In -54, when The Greyhound Corporation merged the TGL, along with the DGL, into the SEGL, Guy Huguelet became the chairman of the board of the expanded SEGL, and Greenslit moved to Lexington, where he succeeded Huguelet as the president of the SEGL.
Then in 1960, when The Greyhound Corporation merged the SEGL with the Atlantic GL, thus creating the Southern GL (SGL), then Greyhound transferred Greenslit to Atlanta, the headquarters of the SGL, as the first president of the SGL. About -63 Greyhound transferred Greenslit to Chicago, the corporate headquarters, in a senior-executive position. In 1968 Greenslit, at age 65, retired from Greyhound, and he returned from Chicago to New Orleans, where he had first lived during 1932-54. He took part in many civic and charitable activities, including his having founded the Goodwill Industries of New Orleans. [More about the Southeastern GL is available in my article about the SEGL.]
Both Greenslit (a lawyer) and Townsend had come from the same hometown – Hastings, Nebraska.
Teche GL in 1954
By 1954 the TGL ran from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and onward to Natchez, Mississippi; through Hammond, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi, on the way to Memphis, Saint Louis, and Chicago; through Hattiesburg and Meridian, both in Mississippi, to Birmingham, Alabama; through Mobile and Montgomery, both in Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, to Atlanta; through Mobile to Marianna, Florida, on the way to Tallahassee, the rest of the Sunshine State, and the Atlantic Seaboard; and westwardly through Lafayette to Lake Charles, both in Louisiana and on the way to Houston, the rest of Texas, and the rest of the West; plus along several branch and feeder routes in the southern part of the Pelican State.
The Teche GL met the Dixie GL to the north, the Southwestern GL to the west, the Atlantic GL to the northeast, the Florida GL to the east, and the Southeastern GL to the east and northeast.
The TGL took part in 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 – connecting New Orleans with Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, Washington, Jacksonville, Miami, and Saint Petersburg.
Merger of the TGL into the SEGL
On 01 October 1954 The Greyhound Corporation merged the Teche GL, along with the Dixie GL, based in Memphis, Tennessee, into the Southeastern GL, a neighboring regional operating company, based in Lexington, Kentucky. The three fleets became combined into a single fleet.
Thus ended both the Teche GL and the Dixie GL.
The combined fleet of the newly expended SEGL contained 912 coaches – 581 from the SEGL, 211 from the TGL, and 120 from the DGL. The SEGL then renumbered the entire fleet; it finished that process on 01 July 1955.
After that merger the newly expanded SEG Lines served 12 states along 13,227 route-miles of highways – from Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans – to Savannah and Jacksonville – from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean.
Merger of the Florida GL into the SEGL
On 01 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 availale in my article about the FGL.]
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 GM 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 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 the AGL.]
Beyond the TGL, 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.”]
Conclusion
The Teche 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 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 Southwestern Greyhound Lines, the Valley Greyhound Lines, The Greyhound Corporation, and the Tennessee Coach Company.
Bibliography
Backfire, the corporate newspaper for 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.
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:
July-August 1990;
March-April 1991;
April-June 1995;
October-December 1996;
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.
Sifford, Charlotte Townsend, personal correspondence with the author, 2021. [Mrs. Sifford is the daughter of Harold Francis Townsend and a niece of Oliver William Townsend.]
Online schedules and historical data at www.greyhound.com.
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Posted at 20:19 EDT, Saturday, 04 June 2022.