Trending
Today’s community column is about the pre-World War II years of the Warren Transportation Company. Two weeks from today, Tuesday, April 7, will be the second installment of that company’s history, dealing with the World War II and post war years.
Some of the information included below has been gleaned from an interview of Haven X. Mumford my father that was published in The Sunday Tribune Magazine. The feature, called “Living Histories,” was by Grace Allison, circa 1980.
If you’re under 50 years old, you most likely have no recollection or knowledge of an intra-city passenger bus service serving Warren called The Warren Transportation Company.
Around 1924, The West End Traction Company, using White Motor Company buses for their equipment, dropped the use of streetcars. Buses could be operated just as cheaply as streetcars, needed no tracks or overhead wires and routes could be almost infinitely flexible. This made Warren, Ohio, the first completely motorized city in the U.S.A., according to some stories.
By 1933, most likely due to the Depression, all the assets of the West End Traction Company – the buses, the garage, the equipment and a small amount of money were turned over to its 15 employees, including my dad. At the time of this transaction, West End Traction had paid Warren City council to have some of the streetcar tracks removed.
These 15 employees, the company’s stockholders, who had been either drivers or mechanics for West End Traction, formed the Warren Transportation Company. My dad was made general manager in 1935. He would continue in that position for the next 34 years.
In the mid-’30s, buses were a big part of the local scene. Not everybody could afford a car, so going downtown to shop or go to the movies meant riding a bus. More importantly, many got to and from work that way, too – either to factories or local businesses. For a dime you could go just about anywhere in the city and kids rode for a nickel.
In 1938, when the company was bought out by C. I. McAllister, six new General Motors buses were purchased. GM had offered special incentives back then for transit companies to purchase buses from Yellow Coach, the predecessor of GM Truck and Coach.
An early bus company garage was located on West Market Street right next to the then-Second Christian Church. It had a service station out front. Gasoline was 16 cents a gallon. In late 1940, a new bus garage with its accompanying offices was built at 538 West Market St., almost to the corner at Buckeye. Buses could finish their runs, enter the back of the garage from Buckeye, be serviced and made ready to go again, and then leave via the front entrance on Market. That building still stands, immediately east of the building that was last Franco’s Auto Sales, which was Carpet King, which was Jim Nickel Motors, which was Bartholomew Motors and so it goes.
I always thought that the buses were so prettily painted in those days. Much to my delight, when my dad had a design inspiration, he bought an all-metal Marx toy bus that was about 18 inches long. He and one of the mechanics, who doubled as a painter, would meticulously mask and paint that little bus until they saw the color scheme and design that looked just right. The result was beautiful, and that design would be transferred directly to the full-sized buses. That toy bus then became my possession until another design idea was to be tried.
The colors were fabulous. The main body of the bus was two-tone cream and dark blue enamel with orange trim. The roofs were painted silver, and The Warren Transportation Co. lettering was hand painted on both sides in gold. The last new color scheme was used on the four brand new GM buses that the company purchased in 1941. It would forever be the last use of those beautiful colors and the last purchase of new buses for four years. War was going on in Europe, and it was just a matter of months before the U.S. was totally involved.
Mumford, of Warren, can be reached at columns@tribtoday.com.