Greyhound Lines history

By 1915 a motorcycle racer named Ralph Bogan began transporting miners from Hibbings to Alice for 50 cents.

In 1916 the company, then known as “Hibbing Transportation,” had its own bus station which was located in a firehouse.

By the mid-1920’s Wickman’s company, renamed Mesaba Transportation Company, was worth several million dollars and had numerous partners.

In 1925 the man who had started it all left the company and purchased a fledgling firm known as the White Bus Line.

1926: Wickman merges several bus lines together to form the Motor Transit Corporation, nicknamed 'Greyhound.'

Despite the popularity of this new form of tranporta-tion, Greyhound nearly failed after the stock market crash of 1929.

In 1930, the company changed its name to Greyhound Corp.

By the end of the century, after the company sold its Greyhound Lines to Laidlaw Inc. of Canada, Greyhound buses still ran in and out of Chicago, but the company had little presence in the city. Its fortunes were boosted by the 1933 World's Fair held in Chicago, during which it helped to move some 20 million attendees around the 428-acre fair site.

Historian Carlton Jackson, in his Hounds of the Road, a history of Greyhound, claimed that ridership also increased after a 1934 movie entitled It Happened One Night was released, in which movie stars Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable take a cross-country bus trip.

Carl Jackson, a historian who has studied Greyhound, claims that ridership also increased after a 1935 movie entitled, “It Happened One Night,” was released.

In 1939 management of Greyhound anticipated the coming war, and began to stockpile parts.

America’s most well-known motorcoach company found consolation in its balance sheets however, as profits climbed to $10 million by the mid-1940’s.

Wickman retired as president of the corporation in 1946 and was succeeded by Orville Caesar.

A series of walkouts in 1950 was prompted by a well-publicized incident in which 19 drivers suspected of skimming fares were lured to a hotel and held there against their will for 36 hours.

Lady Greyhound, the animal mascot of the Greyhound Corporation was introduced in 1957.

Greyhound began to diversify in earnest during the 1960’s.

Previous to 1961, the company’s diversification had been limited to the operation of restaurants in terminals, a van line, a package express service and the manufacture of buses and bus accessories.

In 1962 Greyhound purchased Booth Leasing and soon became the largest industrial leasing company in the world.

Greyhound’s food services were expanded in 1964 with the acquisition of a roadside restaurant chain, Home’s, and Prophet Foods, a large industrial and institutional caterer.

In addition, a money order firm, Traveller’s Express, and an insurance company, General Fire and Casualty, were added to Greyhound’s list of purchases by 1965.

In 1966 a separate computer leasing company was formed.

In 1967 Greyhound continued to make acquisitions in the service industry.

Greyhound’s success with its expansion into financial services and its initial success with Armour continued to be overshadowed by difficulties with bus operations throughout the 1970’s.

In 1978 Greyhound's chief executive officer, Gerald Trautman, concluded that the company's health still depended on its bus operations.

In 1982 Trautman decided to retire.

Teets' handling of the violent 47-day bus driver's strike in 1983 was no different.

Had a customer not defrauded Greyhound leasing of of $19 million dollars, 1985 profits would have been up 12% from the year before.

In 1987 the Greyhound Corporation (which was later renamed Greyhound Dial Corporation), based in Phoenix, Arizona, sold its historic bus operations.

When Greyhound headed into contract talks with its unionized employees (members of the Amalgamated Transit Union) in early 1990, Currey decided to take a hard line, telling the union that the company would hire permanent replacement workers if the union went out on strike.

Frank J. Schmieder took over leadership of the company in July 1991.

In July 1993 Greyhound launched a nationwide rollout of a computerized reservation system called 'Trips,' which executives viewed as the key to the company's future.

In early 1995 Plaskett was named chairman of Greyhound.

Greyhound Canada, which Laidlaw had acquired in October 1997, was subsequently merged into Greyhound Lines, creating the largest intercity bus line in North America.

Greyhound Canada, which Laidlaw had acquired in October 1997, was subsequently merged into Greyhound Lines, creating the largest intercity bus line in North America. It was thus a revitalized Greyhound that reached an agreement in October 1998 to be acquired by Laidlaw Inc., a Canadian firm based in Burlington, Ontario.

Completed in March 1999 at a cash plus debt price of about $650 million, the transaction turned Greyhound into a wholly owned subsidiary of Laidlaw.

In 2010, the company launched its premium city-to-city service, Greyhound Express, and has since quickly expanded the popular service to more than 135 markets across North America.

Since 2013, FlixMobility has changed the way hundreds of millions of people have traveled throughout Europe and created tens of thousands of new jobs in the mobility industry.

In 2018, FlixMobility launched FlixBus USA to bring this new travel alternative to the United States.