Greyhound Bus Schedule Memphis Tn

Dixie Greyhound Lines
Dixie Greyhound Motorbus Lines Complex Master St, Memphis, Tenn. (2010 Photo)
Traded as	Greyhound Lines
Predecessor	Smith Motor Charabanc Visitor
Founded	1925 (1925)
Founder	James Frederick Smith
Defunct	Oct 1954 (1954-ten) (merged, combined)
Successor	Southeastern Greyhound Lines
Area served	Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Alabama, Louisiana

The Dixie Greyhound Lines (called besides Dixie or DGL), a highway-passenger vehicle carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating visitor, based in Memphis, Tennessee, U.s., from 1930 until 1954, when information technology (along with the Teche Greyhound Lines) became merged into the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company.

Origin [edit]

The Dixie Greyhound Lines (GL) began in 1925 in Memphis (on the Mississippi River and in the southwest corner of Tennessee) as the Smith Motor Jitney Company, when James Frederick Smith, a erstwhile (and successful) truck salesman, received a used truck every bit a gift from his previous employer (John Fisher, a dealer, who owned the Memphis Motor Company).

Smith removed the truck torso, built a 12-seat bus body instead on the chassis, and started driving the vehicle himself, first betwixt Memphis and Rosemark, northeast of Millington, in the north cease of Shelby County (of which Memphis is the seat), most 25 miles from downtown Memphis to the north-northeast on country road 14 (an alternate route to Brownsville), and soon too between Memphis and Bolivar, about 66 miles to the east on US highway 64, on the style to Chattanooga.

James Frederick Smith was the son of Captain James Buchanan "Jim Buck" Smith, who commanded steamboats on the rivers Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland – for several owners, including the Ryman Line, the property of Captain Tom Ryman, who in 1892 gave the funds for the construction of the Wedlock Gospel Tabernacle in Nashville (which became renamed as the Ryman Auditorium later on the distributor died in 1904, and which served every bit the habitation of the Thou Ole Opry from 1943 until 1974). Early in his life (earlier age twenty) young Smith discarded his outset proper name, strongly preferring to be known every bit Fred or Frederick. In late 1909, after a devastating downturn in the waterborne trade, both the begetter and the son worked temporarily for Clarence Saunders, the famous wholesale grocer in Memphis, the inventor of the concept of self-service retail grocery stores, the builder and the owner of the Pink Palace mansion (later on and now a museum), and the man who made and lost a fortune as the founder of the Piggly Wiggly grocery-store concatenation.]

Evolution [edit]

By the end of his second yr in business organization, Smith endemic and ran 25 coaches; by the end of his 3rd year, he had lx. [In the early years Fred operated in Memphis his ain plant in which he congenital his omnibus bodies and mounted them on the truck chassis.]

During its kickoff four years the Smith Motor Coach Company started two more routes – to Covington and on to Dyersburg, about 75 miles to the north on US-51, and to Jackson, most 82 miles to the east-northeast on US-seventy – and then extended 3 routes – the Jackson line to Nashville (the capital of the Volunteer Land and in the center of it), the Dyersburg line to Union City, and the Bolivar line to Selmer and before long onward to the eastward along the southern margin of the state to Chattanooga.

Fifty-fifty more growth came quickly, taking the firm outside Tennessee: In 1930 the Smith company reached Paducah in Kentucky, Evansville in Indiana, and Saint Louis in Missouri, and in the next twelvemonth, 1931, it reached Birmingham in Alabama and Jackson in Mississippi (on the way to New Orleans in Louisiana).

Every bit a Greyhound company [edit]

Dixie Greyhound Lines' Memphis Terminal, September 1943

In 1931 The Greyhound Corporation bought a decision-making (majority) involvement in the Smith Motor Passenger vehicle Company, renamed information technology as the Dixie Greyhound Lines, and appointed Frederick Smith as the president of the DGL (as a subsidiary of the parent Greyhound business firm).

Later in 1931 Dixie reached every bit far due north as Springfield and Effingham (both in Illinois and on the way to Chicago), thereby completing a Greyhound directly through-route between Chicago and New Orleans via Memphis, by connecting with other Greyhound regional companies to the north (the Illinois GL, later the Fundamental GL, even later the Neat Lakes GL) and to the south (the Teche GL).

In 1932 Smith (along with J.C. Stedman, an entrepreneur from Houston, Texas) also founded the Toddle House eating house concatenation, based as well in Memphis. For the next several years the chain expanded through a number of states, opening as many as 50 new stores per year. [Toddle House in 1955 served as the pattern for the cosmos of the Waffle House chain, partly because one of the founders of the latter had worked equally a manager for the former (fifty-fifty while taking part in founding the latter).]

In January 1930 Fred Smith drew a brother, Earl William Smith Sr., ii years younger than he, into the management of the Dixie GL (and later into Toddle House equally well). [Earl had worked (in both passenger service and dining-car operations) for the Frisco (SL&SF) Railway and the Santa Iron (AT&SF) Railroad – and for the Fred Harvey organization in the hospitality industry in the Far West.]

Fred also served a short time as a commissioned officer in the Us Naval Reserve during World War Ii.

In 1948 Fred Smith suddenly died, and Earl succeeded Fred every bit the president of Dixie; then in 1949 The Greyhound Corporation bought the minority involvement of the Smith family. Earl remained as the president of Dixie (as a division of the parent Greyhound firm) until -54, when Greyhound merged the DGL into the Southeastern GL (called also Southeastern, SEG, SEGL, or the SEG Lines).

Earl then served as a vice president of the SEGL, although he chose to maintain his part in Memphis rather than Lexington, Kentucky, the long-time SEG headquarters – until he died in 1955.

By 1954 Dixie ran from Memphis to Saint Louis, Paducah, Evansville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Florence and Birmingham (both in Alabama), and Columbus, Jackson, and Vicksburg (all three in Mississippi), plus along branch lines to Jonesboro (in Arkansas) and in West Tennessee.

The Dixie GL met the Southeastern GL to the east, the Teche GL to the south, the Southwestern GL to the west, and the Capitol GL, the Cardinal GL, the Bang-up Lakes GL, and the Pennsylvania GL to the n.

The DGL took part in major interlined through-routes (using pooled equipment in cooperation with other Greyhound companies) – that is, the apply of through-coaches on through-routes running through the territories of two or more than Greyhound regional operating companies – between Kansas Urban center and Memphis, Saint Louis and New Orleans, Chicago and New Orleans, Saint Louis and Nashville, Memphis and Detroit, Dallas and Knoxville, Dallas and Atlanta, Memphis and Miami, and Memphis and both Washington and New York City.

Merger into Southeastern GL [edit]

In October 1954 The Greyhound Corporation merged Dixie and a neighboring regional company, the Teche GL (chosen besides Teche or TGL), based in New Orleans, Louisiana, into the Southeastern GL, another neighboring operating visitor, based in Lexington, Kentucky. The three fleets of the three divisions became combined into a single fleet.

Thus ended the Dixie GL.

Beyond Dixie GL [edit]

After that merger the expanded SEG Lines served 12 states forth 13,227 route-miles of highways – from Cincinnati (in Ohio), Saint Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lake Charles (all the last 3 in Louisiana) – to Savannah (in Georgia) and Jacksonville (in Florida) – from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Sea and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of United mexican states.

In October 1957 The Greyhound Corporation merged also the Florida GL (called also FGL), one more neighboring operating company, based in Jacksonville, Florida, into the SEGL.

In November 1960 Greyhound further merged the Atlantic GL (called besides Atlantic or AGL), yet another neighboring regional visitor, based in Charleston, Due west Virginia, with – not into but rather with – the Southeastern GL – thereby creating the Southern Sectionalisation of The Greyhound Corporation (called as well the Southern GL), the 3rd of four huge new divisions (along with Central, Eastern, and Western).

Thus ended the Southeastern GL, and thus began the Southern GL.

Afterwards (near 1966) The Greyhound Corporation reorganized again, into just two humongous divisions, named every bit the Greyhound Lines Eastward (GLE) and the Greyhound Lines West (GLW); even later (virtually 1970) it eliminated those two divisions, thus leaving a unmarried gargantuan undivided nationwide fleet.

When the Southern GL came into existence, the headquarters functions became gradually transferred from Lexington, Kentucky, and Charleston, West Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia; when the GLE arose, many of those authoritative functions became shifted to Cleveland, Ohio; later still those functions migrated to Chicago, Illinois, so to Phoenix, Arizona, when (in 1971) The Greyhound Corporation moved its corporate headquarters from Chicago to a new building in Phoenix.

In 1987 The Greyhound Corporation (the original umbrella Greyhound firm), which had become widely diversified far beyond rider transportation, sold its entire highway-passenger vehicle operating business (its cadre bus business organization) to a new company, named every bit the Greyhound Lines, Inc., chosen too GLI, based in Dallas, Texas – a separate, independent, unrelated firm, which was the belongings of a grouping of private investors nether the promotion of Fred Currey, a former executive of the Continental Trailways (later renamed as the Trailways, Inc., chosen also TWI, likewise based in Dallas), which was past far the largest member visitor in the Trailways trade association (and then named as the National Trailways Bus Arrangement).

Subsequently in 1987 the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, the new firm based in Dallas, further bought also the Trailways, Inc., the TWI, its largest competitor, and merged information technology into the GLI.

The lenders and the other investors of the GLI ousted Fred Currey (as the primary executive officer) subsequently the house went into bankruptcy in 1990.

The GLI has continued to feel 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 24-hour interval (fewer than 7 days per week) – and by using fewer through-coaches, thus requiring passengers to brand more than transfers (from 1 motorbus to another).

After the auction to the GLI, The Greyhound Corporation changed its proper name to the Greyhound-Dial Corporation, then the Dial Corporation, then the Viad Corporation. [The contrived name Viad appears to be a curious respelling of the one-time proper name Dial – if ane scrambles the messages D, I, and A, and then turns the V upside down and regards information technology as the Greek alphabetic character lambda – Λ – that is, the Greek equivalent of the Roman or Latin letter L.]

The website of the Viad Corporation (http://www.viad.com) in September 2008 makes no mention of its corporate history or its past human relationship to Greyhound – that is, its origin equally The Greyhound Corporation.

Preliminaries toward Continental Trailways [edit]

For a while during the 1930s Maurice Edwin (M.E.) Moore, from Jackson, Tennessee, worked every bit a field passenger amanuensis for the Dixie GL (after start working in 1928 at age eighteen as a ticket agent at a bus station in Fiddling Rock, Arkansas). One-time late in the -30s Moore left the DGL, then he founded the Arkansas Motor Coaches, based in Little Rock, bought 16 Flxible Clippers, and started running them between Little Rock and Texarkana via Hot Springs. [A Flxible Clipper, a product of The Flxible Visitor, built in Loudonville, Ohio, was a small, short, modest, relatively inexpensive coach with 21-29 seats and a Buick (direct-8) or Chevrolet (direct-6) gasoline engine.] He presently extended from Little Rock to Memphis. In 1943 he bought the Bowen Motor Jitney Company (based in Fort Worth, Texas), which had become a major carrier through a big part of the Solitary-star Land. [The Bowen firm was already a member of the Trailways association and thus was called also the Bowen Trailways.]

Thus began the Continental Omnibus System, which before long led to the formation of the Transcontinental Bus System, both based in Dallas, Texas, both using the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Continental Trailways, which together eventually became past far the largest member company in the National Trailways association, and which in 1968 became a subsidiary of the Vacation Inns of America, based in Memphis, and subsequently became renamed every bit the Trailways, Inc., the TWI – which the Greyhound Lines, Inc., the GLI, bought in 1987 and merged into the GLI.

References [edit]

Hixson, Kenneth (2001). Choice of the Litter. Lexington: Centerville Volume Company. ISBN 0-87642-016-1.
Jackson, Carlton (1984). Hounds of the Road. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87972-270-3.
Meier, Albert, and John Hoschek (1975). Over the Road. Upper Montclair, NJ (US): Motor Bus Society. No ISBN.
Schisgall, Oscar (1985). The Greyhound Story. Chicago: J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company. ISBN 0-385-19690-iii.
Trimble, Vance (1993). Overnight Success. New York City: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-58510-iii.
Motor Coach Age (a publication of the Motor Bus Society), various problems, especially these:

August 1977;

July–August 1990;

Apr–June 1995;

October–December 1996;

October–December 1997;

Oct–Dec 1998.

Backlash, the corporate newspaper for the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, all issues, from January 1938 through Feb 1956.
Jon's Trailways History Corner, a web-based Trailways history past Jan Hobijn (besides known as Jon Hobein) at http://cw42.tripod.com/Jon.html.
Web-based schedules and historical data at https://spider web.archive.org/web/20060312191347/http://world wide web.greyhound.com/.

External links [edit]

"Dixie Greyhound Lines" (at Bluehounds and Redhounds)
Bluehounds and Redhounds, the history of Greyhound and Trailways
"Northland Greyhound Lines" (at Bluehounds and Redhounds), including the early history of The Greyhound Corporation
"Greyhound Lines later WW2" (at Bluehounds and Redhounds)
"The Scenicruiser" at Bluehounds and Redhounds
Fred Smith Burial Site