The Tennessee Coach Company (TCC) was a regional highway-coach carrier, founded in 1928 and based in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. It was in operation until 1976, when it became merged into the Continental Tennessee Lines, a subsidiary of the Transcontinental Bus System, called also the Continental Trailways. Continental Trailways was by far the largest member company in the Trailways trade association, which was then named the National Trailways Bus System.
Origin
The TCC began in the Volunteer State in 1928, combining the Southern Motor Coach Company, which had started running in 1924 between Knoxville and Chattanooga, and the Safety Coach Company, which had started running in 1925 between Knoxville and Johnson City.
Background
The story of the TCC dates back to 1919 in Ohio with Onnie Bruce "O.B." Baskette. He drove first for the Cleveland-Akron Bus Company, then for the Cleveland-Elyria-Toledo Bus Company (which, despite its name, ran only between Cleveland and Norwalk, Ohio, beyond Elyria but short of Toledo). He then returned to the former firm in a management job.
Baskette moved to North Carolina during the winter of 1924-25 and started working (albeit for a short time) for the Carolina Motor Coaches (running between Raleigh and Greensboro, which in November 1925 became a major part of the newly founded Carolina Coach Company. In May 1940 the latter firm became a member of the Trailways association and became known also as the Carolina Trailways; in 1997 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Greyhound Lines, Inc. (GLI). One curious result of that last step is that a Greyhound subsidiary, the Carolina Coach Company, the Carolina Trailways, is a member of the Trailways association, now the Trailways Transportation System].
While Baskette was in North Carolina, he met two brothers, Al and M.H. Kraemer, who became connected (although not as principals) with the Carolina Coach Company in its beginning.
Baskette, seeking an opportunity to start a firm of his own, moved to East Tennessee. In March 1925 he began running between Knoxville and Johnson City along US highway 11E (US-11E) via Jefferson City, Morristown, and Greeneville. In the next year, 1926, he incorporated his operation as the Safety Coach Company. He started with two Fageol Safety Coaches and added seven more by the end of 1926. In naming his firm he took a cue from the brand name of the Fageol Safety Coaches, as did a number of the founders of other early coach concerns.
The two Kraemer brothers left the Carolina Coach Company in 1927, then they joined Baskette in his firm in Tennessee.
Development
In 1928 O.B. Baskette and Al Kraemer incorporated the Tennessee Coach Company, bought the Southern Motor Coach Company (running between Knoxville and Chattanooga), then merged that firm and Baskett's own Safety Coach Company (running between Knoxville and Johnson City) into the new TCC.
The State of Tennessee in 1929 issued a joint certificate (of public convenience and necessity) to the TCC and the Union Transfer Company (UTC), based in Nashville, for service between Nashville and Knoxville along US-70, later redesignated in part as US-70S, via Murfreesboro, Woodbury, McMinnville, Sparta, Crossville, Rockwood, and Kingston.
[In 1930 the Consolidated Coach Corporation (Consolidated, CCC, or the CCC Lines), based in Lexington, Kentucky, bought the UTC; in 1931 Consolidated adopted the brand name, trade name, or service name of the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (Southeastern, SEG, SEGL, or the SEG Lines); in 1936 the Consolidated firm became renamed as the Southeastern Greyhound Lines (GL).]
The Tennessee Coach Company in 1929 extended its Johnson City line to Bristol (on the state line between Tennessee and Virginia) and in 1930 to Bluefield (on the state line between Virginia and West Virginia; in 1938 it added service to Atlanta, Georgia, both from Knoxville and from Chattanooga (although along rural backwoodsy routes through lightly populated areas, because Greyhound already ran between Chattanooga and Atlanta through more populous areas in north Georgia via Rome, Dalton, and Calhoun).
The TCC also provided extensive local commuter service from Knoxville to Kingston, Rockwood, Harriman, Oliver Springs, and (especially during World War II) to Oak Ridge (still sometimes called the Secret City). [Oak Ridge was the site of the headquarters of the top-secret Manhattan Project, which in 1945 produced the world's first nuclear weapons.]