Great Lakes Greyhound Lines - Motor Transit Corporation

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 (MTC), 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 Eckstrom 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 (both in Indiana).

Ed Eckstrom then served as the first president of the MTC.

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 (such as Cardinal, Oriole, Blue Goose, Purple Swan, Blue Bird, Eagle, Jackrabbit, and Thorobred) along with colored objects (such as Red Ball, Green Line, Gold Seal, White Star, Silver Line, and Red Arrow) – 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 (in 1928), which began using the brand name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (in 1931), and which became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (in 1936).

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 (which in 1929 became renamed as The Greyhound 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 Eckstrom (with his flair for marketing) with the first use of the name Greyhound in a way which became the name of the once-great company.

It’s true that Eckstrom took the use of the name Greyhound into the MTC when the MTC bought Eckstrom’s Safety Motor Coach Lines.

However, it appears that Eckstrom had gotten that usage from E.J. Stone when Eckstrom took over the Eastern Wisconsin Transportation Company.

When the MTC bought Eckstrom’s Safety Motor Coach Lines, Eckstrom 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 Eckstrom’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 (a subsidiary of an Insull railway property) 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 (in Michigan), an alternate one between Chicago and Grand Rapids via Benton Harbor, and one between South Bend (in Indiana) and Detroit (which extended and made connections with a railway route, which still operates, now under the name of the South Shore Line, between Chicago and South Bend).

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 (earlier in 1929) from the American Motor Transportation Company.

The Safety Motor Coach Lines continued (as a subsidiary of the MTC) until 1930, when it became renamed as the Eastern Greyhound Lines (EGL) of Michigan, which in 1935 became renamed as the Central Greyhound Lines (CGL) of Michigan (making the third use of the name of the Central GL), which in 1936 became a part of the undenominated main (second) 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.