Southeastern Greyhound Lines

The Southeastern Greyhound Lines (called also Southeastern, SEG, SEGL, or the SEG Lines), a highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, from 1931 until 1960, when it became merged with the Atlantic Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company, thereby forming the Southern Division of The Greyhound Corporation (the parent Greyhound firm), called also the Southern Greyhound Lines.

The Southeastern Greyhound Lines (GL) started in 1926 as the Consolidated Coach Corporation (called also Consolidated, CCC, or the CCC Lines) – with the participation of Guy Alexander Huguelet, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a lawyer of German and French-Swiss descent, who from the outset served variously as the legal counsel, the general manager, the vice president, and (mostly) the president. uguelet had begun his career in transportation by working (for six years, starting at age 15) in several clerical jobs for two railroad companies (at different times), the Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway System and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Atlantic Coast Line, in and around Charleston and in Charlotte, North Carolina.]

In 1926, the same year in which Guy Huguelet and his associates in Lexington incorporation (business), formed the Consolidated Coach Corporation, Carl Eric Wickman, Orville Swan Caesar, and their associates in Duluth, Minnesota, formed the Motor Transit Corporation, which in 1929 was renamed as The Greyhound Corporation.

Consolidated, as the name suggests, began as a result of the acquisition and combination (that is, consolidation) of a number of pre-existing small bus companies which extended more-or-less radially on routes reaching outward from Lexington throughout the Bluegrass State – to Frankfort and Louisville (and later onward to Owensboro and Henderson and to Evansville in Indiana), Carrollton, Madison (in Indiana), Cincinnati (in Ohio), Maysville, Ashland (and onward for a while to Huntington in West Virginia), Paintsville, Pikeville, Hazard, Harlan, Danville, Richmond, Berea, London, Corbin (and later beyond to Knoxville in Tennessee via Williamsburg in Kentucky and LaFollette in Tennessee), Middlesboro (and later onward to Knoxville on an alternate route via Tazewell and Maynardville, all three in Tennessee), Somerset (and later onward to Chattanooga via Oneida and Dayton while bypassing Knoxville, all four in Tennessee), Bardstown, Columbia, Glasgow, Scottsville, Burkesville, Tompkinsville, Paducah (for a while), and Bowling Green (and in 1927 onward to Nashville in Tennessee). In September, 1928, Guy Huguelet bought a controlling interest in the Greyhound Bus Line Company from Ezra Polhamus and his son, Edward, who had been operating the bus line from Ashland, KY. At that time, Mr. Huguelet was elected president, succeeding Ezra Polhamus, while M.V.Swift of Lexington was elected secretary-treasurer, succeeding Edward Polhamus.

Development

Consolidated spread farther to the south and southeast by buying even more existing bus operations, including in 1930 the Union Transfer Company (UTC), which had begun in -24 in the Volunteer State. Union, based in Nashville, Tennessee, provided the CCC Lines with the routes connecting Nashville with Knoxville, Chattanooga, Hopkinsville (in Kentucky), and Florence and Birmingham (both in Alabama), plus a link between Knoxville and Chattanooga (both in East Tennessee).

Among the other acquired bus properties were two related firms in Alabama – the Alabama Bus Company (running from Chattanooga in Tennessee through Birmingham and Montgomery to Mobile, the entire length of the "Heart of Dixie") and the Capital Coaches (running from Birmingham through Montgomery to Dothan), both bought also in 1930.

Tuscaloosa (both in Alabama) from the same Alabama Bus Company, then promptly extended about 93 more miles from Tuscaloosa to Meridian, Mississippi">Meridian