![]() “Greyhound has become generic for bus travel,” says Robert Gabrick, author of Going The Greyhound Way. Wickman, it turns out, pretty much invented intercity bus travel-which for most Americans equals Greyhound, the company that emerged from that long-ago Hupmobile ride. But 100 years later, that modest sum has grown into nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue. On his first trip, in 1914, Wickman collected a grand total of $2.25. Cramming 15 passengers into his eight-seat “touring car,” the 27-year-old charged 15 cents a ride. Realizing that most iron miners were too poor to afford their own vehicle, Wickman decided to start transporting workers between Hibbing and Alice, a mining town two miles away. ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, Wickman was even worse at selling cars than he was at picking car makers-so the enterprising young Swede abandoned his dealership dreams soon after making his one and only sale … to himself. In 1913, the immigrant drill operator paid $3,000 to open a Goodyear Tire/ Hupmobile car franchise in Hibbing, Minn., not far from the world’s largest open-pit iron mine. It's hard to believe that after all these years, the company is still riding high.Īs careers go, Carl Eric Wickman’s stint in the car business was less than auspicious. Greyhound has been busing Americans around for a century.
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