Great Lakes Greyhound Lines


The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, a highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Detroit, Michigan, USA, from 1941 until 1957, when it merged with the Northland Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company, thereby forming the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, called also the Central Greyhound Lines.

Origin

The Great Lakes Greyhound Lines resulted from a combination of three major components: the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses, the Ohio Greyhound Lines, and the Michigan routes of the Central Greyhound Lines.
That third source, the Central GL, is of particular historical interest, because it had descended from, among other elements, the Safety Motor Coach Lines, in which Edwin Eckstrom, an early investor and participant in the Greyhound development in northern Minnesota, first applied the name Greyhound to the coaches and the companies and first applied the blue-and-white livery to the coaches.

Eastern Michigan Motorbuses

In 1924 the Detroit United Railway Company, an electric interurban rail carrier, formed a highway-coach subsidiary, then named as the People's Motor Coach Company, to enable its parent firm to reduce its operating costs and to enhance its competitive position against an increasing number of rivals operating buses on the improving roads.
During the following years the PMC Company developed an extensive bus system, mostly by the acquisition of pre-existing smaller companies, operating along both suburban and intercity routes.
In one notable event, late in 1924 the DUR Company bought the Detroit-Toledo Transportation Company from Ralph A.L. Bogan, another original busman from northern Minnesota. Bogan had used the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Blue Goose Lines, as he had previously used the same brand name for one other bus company and later used it again for a third firm. The DUR Company extended the name of the Blue Goose Lines to its entire intercity system.
Eventually all three of those Bogan routes became segments of the growing Greyhound route network; Bogan himself continued as a key player at Greyhound, serving eventually as the vice president during the presidency of Orville Swan Caesar of The Greyhound Corporation, after the retirement of Carl Eric Wickman, the principal founder of Greyhound.
Other acquired firms included the White Star Motorbus Company, the Wolverine Transit Company, the Star Motor Coach Line, and the Highway Motorbus Company.
The DUR Company in 1928 became renamed as the Eastern Michigan Railways, and the PMC Company, its highway-coach subsidiary, in 1928 became likewise renamed as the Eastern Michigan Motorbuses ; then in -31 the EM Railways went into the second bankruptcy and reorganization.
The renamed EMM continued to acquire other firms, including the Southern Michigan Transportation Company, the Great Lakes Motor Bus Company, and the Grosse Ile Rapid Transit Company.
Despite the lack of success of the parent EM Railways, by 1938 the subsidiary EM Motorbuses had become the largest intrastate bus company in the Wolverine State.
Then The Greyhound Corporation, the parent Greyhound firm, bought a controlling interest in the EMM under the supervision of the receivers in bankruptcy.
However, the federal Interstate Commerce Commission did not at first allow Greyhound to exercise control over the EMM or to merge it into Greyhound, not until 1941, after a change in the membership of the ICC.
Because of the large size of the EMM, its route network, and its operations, The Greyhound Corporation created a new subsidiary, named as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, which in 1941 took over the EMM.

Ohio Greyhound Lines

In 1941, when the Great Lakes GL came into existence, The Greyhound Corporation merged the Ohio GL into the new Great Lakes GL.
The Ohio GL had run between Detroit and Louisville via Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati, plus along a detached route between Evansville and Indianapolis.
To comply with an Indiana statute, Greyhound created a paper administrative corporation, based in Indiana and named as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines of Indiana, to conduct the route between Evansville and Indianapolis.
In 1928 the Motor Transit Corporation, before it became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation, bought the Detroit and Cincinnati Coach Lines, using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Sunny South Lines, running between those two named cities, thereby gaining the major part of the Greyhound route between Detroit and Louisville.
The Ohio GL continued to increase its route network throughout the Buckeye State, mostly by the acquisition of pre-existing carriers.

Great Lakes GL of Indiana

In 1941, shortly after the creation of the Great Lakes GL, The Greyhound Corporation renamed the Ohio GL as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines of Indiana, based still in Indiana but as a subsidiary of the main undenominated Great Lakes GL.
In 1947 the GLGL of Indiana closed the gap between its two detached routes by obtaining authority from the State of Indiana to run between Madison and Paoli, thereby also providing a new direct through-route between Evansville and Cincinnati.

Cincinnati and Lake Erie (C&LE) Transportation Company

In 1945 The Greyhound Corporation bought a controlling interest in the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Transportation Company, which had begun in 1923 as the highway-coach subsidiary of the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad, an electric interurban railway in western Ohio, which had ended its rail operations in 1939. The C&LE bus firm ran on a main line between Toledo and Hamilton, including several alternate loops, plus along branch lines between Dayton and Columbus, Dayton and Delaware, Xenia and Columbus, and Lima and Springfield ; it also ran extensive suburban operations based in Dayton. That purchase provided Greyhound with the valuable intrastate rights along many route segments on which it had previously held only the interstate rights. Greyhound in 1946 got approval from the ICC and in 1947 merged its new property into the Great Lakes GL of Indiana.

Safety Motor Coach Lines

Edwin Ekstrom, an accountant by education and by profession, born in Ludington, Michigan, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1917 became an investor and participant in the Mesaba Transportation Company, based in Hibbing, the first incorporated firm leading to the founding of the Greyhound empire.
In 1923 Ekstrom acquired a controlling interest in the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company, which Wickman had financed during its founding by E.J. Stone; Ekstrom then went to Wisconsin and took charge of his new property.
In 1924 Stone resigned from the firm which he had founded, then he went to work as a bus salesman for the Mack Truck Company.
Shortly afterward the Eastern Wisconsin concern became sold again - to an electric interurban railway and later to the Northland GL.
Later that same year, 1924, Ekstrom, with the backing of Wickman, founded the Safety Motor Coach Lines, starting with two Fageol Safety Coaches, running between Muskegon and Grand Rapids.
Within months Ekstrom extended his route network northward to Fremont and to Ludington and to the southwest to Chicago via Holland, South Haven, and Benton Harbor and Michigan City.
Ekstrom also started a detached route, farther north in Michigan, between Petoskey and Traverse City, which he sold later, which the Great Lakes GL reacquired, thereby completing a direct through-route between Chicago and Sault Sainte Marie via Benton Harbor, Muskegon, Ludington, and Saint Ignace.
Ekstrom used the name Greyhound by which to refer to his coaches, and he caused that name to be painted onto them.
Ekstrom's firm also began using a logo or trademark, consisting of a running greyhound dog superimposed on a ring, which bore the name and the words "Greyhounds of the Highway".
That design, with only slight modifications, became the pattern for shoulder patches on the uniforms for drivers throughout the entire Greyhound system, and it continued as such until late in the 1980s.
Ekstrom also used and promoted the slogan "ride the Greyhounds".
By the end of 1925 Ekstrom's firm appeared to own and operate as many as 30 coaches, mostly Fageols plus a few Macks.
In 1927 the Safety Motor Coach Lines introduced overnight service between Chicago and Muskegon, during an era while nighttime long-distance highway running was still a rarity.
All that took place while the Ford Model T was still in production, before Henry Ford introduced his Model A.

Motor Transit Corporation

In a crucial move on 20 September 1926, Eric Wickman and his collaborators and investors in Duluth, Minnesota, formed the Motor Transit Corporation, which in 1929 became renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.
The MTC, a holding company, promptly began buying controlling interests in operating companies in the motor-coach industry.
The MTC on 15 October 1926 first bought the Safety Motor Coach Lines, which in 1924 Ed Ekstrom had founded.
On the same day the MTC bought also a controlling interest in the Interstate Stages, using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Oriole Lines, running in part between Detroit and Chicago via South Bend and Elkhart.
Ed Ekstrom then served as the first president of the MTC. It was agreed that, over time, the acquired lines operating under MTC would adopt the Greyhound name and paint scheme.
In July, 1927 Ekstrom, along with brothers, Robert and Alex, sold their interests in Safety Motor Coach and MTC to Wickman then headed to Fort Worth, Texas, where they took over two other firms - the Southland Transportation Corporation, which the MTC had started, and the Red Ball Motor Bus Company, which the MTC had bought - which later became major parts of the Southwestern Greyhound Lines.
During that era many bus companies used the names of animals, often coupled with the names of colors, by which to refer to the buses, the companies, or both along with colored objects - and, inevitably perhaps, Greyhound.
Several early operators used the word greyhound. For instance, one firm, named as the Greyhound Bus Line, running in eastern Kentucky from Ashland to Paintsville and to Mount Sterling, was one of the carriers bought by and merged into the Consolidated Coach Corporation, which began using the brand name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, and which became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines.
According to the best information now available, E.J. Stone of the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company made the first such use of the name greyhound directly traceable into the Motor Transit Corporation, for Stone had informally referred to his coaches as greyhounds, commenting on the resemblance of them to sleek, slender, swift, graceful hounds.
Many authors, observers, and bus historians have credited Ed Ekstrom with the first use of the name Greyhound in a way which became the name of the once-great company.
It's true that Ekstrom took the use of the name Greyhound into the MTC when the MTC bought Ekstrom's Safety Motor Coach Lines.
However, it appears that Ekstrom had gotten that usage from E.J. Stone when Ekstrom took over the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company.
When the MTC bought Ekstrom's Safety Motor Coach Lines, Ekstrom and his company contributed to the MTC not only the name Greyhound and the image of a greyhound dog but also the blue-and-white livery used on Ekstrom's coaches.
In 1928 the MTC bought the Southwestern Michigan Motor Coach Company, which had recently become formed, to acquire most of the routes of the Shore Line Motor Coach Company to the east of Gary, a suburb of Chicago in the northwest corner of Indiana, consisting of the route between Chicago and Detroit via Kalamazoo, an alternate one between Chicago and Grand Rapids via Benton Harbor, and one between South Bend and Detroit.
In 1929 the Safety Motor Coach Lines took over both the Interstate Stages and the Southwestern Michigan Motor Coach Company.
During the same year, 1929, the Safety Motor Coach Lines acquired another route between Chicago and Detroit, from the YellowaY of Michigan, a part of the Pioneer-YellowaY System, which Greyhound had bought from the American Motor Transportation Company.
The Safety Motor Coach Lines continued until 1930, when it became renamed as the Eastern Greyhound Lines of Michigan, which in 1935 became renamed as the Central Greyhound Lines of Michigan, which in 1936 became a part of the undenominated main Central GL, a part of which in -48 became merged into the Great Lakes GL.
In 1930, when the name of the EGL of Michigan came into use, the firm owned and operated a combined fleet of about 135 coaches.

Michigan routes of Central GL

Starting in 1935, the Central GL and then soon the undenominated main Central GL operated all the Greyhound routes in Michigan, including the heavy traffic between Chicago and Detroit, as well as the likewise heavy mainline traffic between Chicago and New York City via Cleveland, including the route via Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany, paralleling the touted "water-level route" of the New York Central System. Midwest and the Northeast, seeking a more efficient operation.

Great Lakes GL as a division

On 31 December 1948 the Great Lakes GL became a division of The Greyhound Corporation, thus losing its separate corporate existence, then Greyhound merged the GLGL of Indiana into the main Great Lakes GL and transferred into the Great Lakes GL all the Michigan routes of the Central GL.
The new division, the Great Lakes GL, took over all the coaches of both previous Great Lakes firms plus all the coaches previously assigned to the Michigan routes of the Central GL.

New routes for Great Lakes GL

In 1955, in connection with the merger of the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL into the new Eastern GL, The Greyhound Corporation transferred three sets of routes in [Illinois">midwestern United States">Midwest and the Northeast, seeking a more efficient operation.

Great Lakes GL as a division

On 31 December 1948 the Great Lakes GL became a division of The Greyhound Corporation, thus losing its separate corporate existence, then Greyhound merged the GLGL of Indiana into the main Great Lakes GL and transferred into the Great Lakes GL all the Michigan routes of the Central GL.
The new division, the Great Lakes GL, took over all the coaches of both previous Great Lakes firms plus all the coaches previously assigned to the Michigan routes of the Central GL.

New routes for Great Lakes GL

In 1955, in connection with the merger of the Central GL and the Pennsylvania GL into the new Eastern GL, The Greyhound Corporation transferred three sets of routes in [Illinois and Indiana to the Great Lakes GL:

Great Lakes GL in 1957

By 1957 the Great Lakes GL reached as far to the north as Sault Sainte Marie, as far to the east as Port Huron and Detroit and Columbus, as far to the south as Louisville and Evansville, and as far to the west as Davenport and Saint Louis and Louisiana ; it met the Eastern Canadian GL, the Northland GL, the new Eastern GL, the Atlantic GL, the Southeastern GL, the Southwestern GL, and the Overland GL.
The Great Lakes GL took part in many major interlined through-routes – that is, the use of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more Greyhound regional operating companies - including these:

Merger with Northland GL

In September 1957, in another round of consolidation, The Greyhound Corporation further merged the Great Lakes GL with - not into but rather with - the Northland GL, a neighboring regional operating company - thereby forming the Central Division of The Greyhound Corporation, the second of four huge new divisions.
The administrative headquarters functions of the Great Lakes GL moved from Detroit to Minneapolis, Minnesota, the home of the Northland GL.
The Northland GL had reached as far north as Sweetgrass, Montana and Winnipeg, Manitoba, as far east as Saint Ignace, Michigan, Milwaukee, and Chicago, as far to the south as Chicago, Dubuque, and Omaha, and as far to the west as Sweetgrass, Great Falls, Helena, and Butte, Montana; it had met the Northwestern GL, the Western Canadian GL and the Eastern Canadian GL, the Great Lakes GL and the Eastern GL, and the Overland GL.
Thus ended the Great Lakes GL and the Northland GL, and thus began the Central GL.

Beyond Great Lakes GL

Later The Greyhound Corporation reorganized again, into just two humongous divisions, named as the Greyhound Lines East and the Greyhound Lines West ; even later it eliminated those two divisions, thereby leaving a single gargantuan undivided nationwide fleet.
In 1987 The Greyhound Corporation, which had become widely diversified far beyond transportation, sold its entire highway-coach operating business to a new company, named as the Greyhound Lines, Inc., called also GLI, based in Dallas, Texas - a separate, independent, unrelated firm, which was the property of a group of private investors under the promotion of Fred Currey, a former executive of the Continental Trailways, which was by far the largest member company in the Trailways association.
Later in 1987 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, the new firm based in Dallas, further bought the Trailways, Inc., the TWI, its largest competitor, and merged it into the GLI.
The lenders and the other investors of the GLI ousted Fred Currey as the chief executive officer after the firm went into bankruptcy in 1990.
The GLI has since continued to experience difficulties and lackluster performance under a succession of new owners and new executives while continuing to reduce its level of service - by hauling fewer passengers aboard fewer coaches on fewer trips along fewer routes with fewer stops in fewer communities in fewer states - and by doing so on fewer days - that is, increasingly operating some trips less often than every day - and by using fewer through-coaches, thus requiring passengers to make more transfers.
After the sale to the GLI, The Greyhound Corporation changed its name to the Greyhound-Dial Corporation, then the Dial Corporation, then the Viad Corporation.
The website of the Viad Corporation in September 2008 makes no mention of its corporate history or its past relationship to Greyhound - that is, its origin as The Greyhound Corporation.