U.S. Transport, Inc. history

Luckily, the incoming Jefferson administration repealed the tax in 1801 and increasing Ohio River shipping provided new outlets for western produce.

Fulton sailed an experimental model on the Seine, and then returned home and launched the first commercial American steamboat on the Hudson River in 1807.

In 1811, Fulton built the New Orleans in Pittsburgh and began steamboat service on the Mississippi.

But from the beginning of the American Revolution to the conclusion of the War of 1812, relations between the new nation and Britain were tense and trade suffered.

The modern rail system was developed in England in 1820, progressing to steam locomotives.

The Erie Canal, built with state funding, was completed in 1825.

The very first American internal combustion engine, built in 1826 by Samuel Morey, had used grain alcohol because it was inexpensive and readily available.

The railroad, which had been established in 1827 to compete with the Erie Canal, already advertised itself as a faster way to move people and freight from the interior to the coast.

Railways were the next prominent mode of transportation – the first railway lines in North America were built in the 1830’s – several years after England had started building its railways.

The National Road, initially funded by the federal government, stretched from Cumberland, Maryland, to Columbus, Ohio by 1833.

Prelude to war, 1850–60Sectionalism and slaveryA decade of political crisesPopular sovereigntyPolarization over slavery

The Illinois Central Company had been chartered in 1851 to build a rail line from the lead mines at Galena to Cairo, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers joined.

Most history books faithfully repeat the inaccurate story that Edwin Drake’s famous 1858 oil strike in Titusville Pennsylvania came just as the world was running out of expensive whale oil.

Secession and the politics of the Civil War, 1860–65The coming of the warThe political course of the warMoves toward emancipationSectional dissatisfaction

Between the ratification of the Bill of Rights and the American Civil War (1861–65), only two amendments were passed, and both were technical in nature.

The Northern Pacific Railway, a private corporation chartered by Congress in 1864, built 6,800 miles of track to connect Lake Superior with Puget Sound.

When the Northern Pacific’s proposed route cut through the center of the Great Sioux Reservation, established by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, the corporation pressured the government to break the treaty.

Workers finished the first coast-to-coast railroad in 1869.

George Custer announced that gold had been discovered in the Black Hills after an 1874 mission protecting Northern Pacific surveyors, and Washington let the treaty be disregarded by both the railroad and the prospectors.

In 1876, the United States celebrated its 100th birthday.

The era of conservative domination, 1877–90

In 1880 Chicago’s population was over 500,000, and ten years later Chicago had over a million residents.

The first gasoline powered automobile was developed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz in 1885.

Grover Cleveland’s first termThe surplus and the tariffThe public domainThe Interstate Commerce ActThe election of 1888

In 1891, William Morrison introduced electric powered automobiles in the US, which were an improvement over the steam engines.

The first internal combustion farm tractor was built by John Froehlich at his small Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company in 1892.

And because Hill only built lines where traffic justified them rather than adding track just to collect free land, the Great Northern was one of the few transcontinental railroad companies to avoid bankruptcy in the Panic of 1893.

The first internal combustion truck was built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1896, using an engine that had been developed by Karl Benz a year earlier.

By the early 1900’s, the automobile had started to become common in our cities – but only the rich could afford automobiles in those days.

In the beginning many American gasoline-powered cars were modeled after the European Mercedes-type introduced in 1901 by Daimler.

By 1902, electric vehicles prevailed as preferred mode of transportation.

Henry Ford introduced the Model T Ford in 1903, which was successfully launched.

In 1906, the first car was developed with an internal combustion engine.

Mass production of the Model T, priced in the range of $825 to $17000, started in 1908.

In 1910, the United States had one of the world’s greatest transportation systems: 353,000 miles of railroad tracks connected states and cities together.

After an auspicious beginning, Froehlich’s little Iowa company grew slowly and began building farm tractors in volume only after World War I. The Waterloo company built a good product, and was acquired by the John Deere Plow Company in 1918.

Indiana mechanic Clessie Cummins built his first, six-horsepower diesel engine in 1919.

In 1923, Alfred Sloan became the president of General Motors.

The federal government had misgivings about allowing lead additives, and in 1925 the Surgeon General temporarily suspended TEL’s use and government scientists secretly approached Ford engineers seeking an alternative.

All successful amendments have been proposed by Congress, and all but one—the Twenty-first Amendment (1933), which repealed Prohibition—have been ratified by state legislatures.

The peak Cold War years, 1945–60The Truman Doctrine and containmentPostwar domestic reorganizationThe Red ScareThe Korean WarPeace, growth, and prosperityEisenhower’s second termDomestic issuesWorld affairsAn assessment of the postwar era

McLean refitted an oil tanker and made his first trip in 1956, carrying fifty-eight containers from Newark to Houston.

When public concern continued to increase, the Ethyl Corporation was sold in 1962 in the largest leveraged buyout of its time.

Many rail companies had given up passenger service by 1970, when Congress created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (known as Amtrak), a government corporation, to take over passenger service.

Much of this growth occurred after airline deregulation, which began in 1978.

Founder James Aronson founded Transport Corporation of America in 1984.

In Transport America's first full year of operation in 1985, it recorded $15 million in revenues.

In 1988, the company implemented an automated interactive voice-response system that interfaced with the computer to allow drivers to communicate locations by phone.

By 1993 Transport America's expanding fleet pushed the company to purchase a new, larger headquarters building in Eagan.

1994-98: Going Public and Financial Growth

By June 1995, the company's operating revenue grew some 12.5 percent, gains due again to growing business from existing customers.

In the first quarter of 1996 the company recorded double-digit growth in revenue.

In August 1997 CEO James Aronson was recognized by Twin Cities Business Monthly magazine as one of a small number of Minnesota entrepreneurs of the year.

Unlike recent years, Transport America experienced some financial difficulties in 1999, with earnings falling below expectations in the last quarter.

Operations of the company began in 2000.

Late in 2001 Transport America announced changes in its management team, naming Michael Paxton as president and chief executive officer.

The interstate system was originally expected to cost $25 billion over 12 years, but ended up costing $114 billion over 35 years (or $425 billion in 2006 dollars).

In 2014, the world shipped more than 58 billion ton-miles of goods.

The campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination