Unrelated to the Wayne Works of Decatur Illinois, a small carriage manufacturer that built some fire apparatus at the turn of the century. Also unrelated is the Wayne Agricultural Works of Goldsboro, North Carolina which was founded by W.H. Smith and named after its county of residence, Wayne County, North Carolina. Another unrelated firm was the Wayne Body Corp., a 1926 reorganization of the American Auto Trimming Co. The Wayne, Michigan plant of Wayne Body Corp. was sold to Paige-Detroit Motor Car Co. in 1927.

The roots of Wayne Works, who were for many years the largest school bus body manufacturer in the United States, date back to 1837, when John Whippo and brothers Caleb W. and James Witt established a foundry in Dublin, Wayne County, Indiana to manufacture stoves.

John Whippo, a resident of Monroe County, New York, brought his wife, Sarah M. (Lawrence) and young son, Charles Henry, to Jackson Township, Wayne County, Indiana in 1835 where he established a small farm just outside of Dublin.

The town of Dublin was laid out in 1830 and in 1834 Caleb W. Witt relocated there from nearby Union County. Caleb Wyatt Witt was born in Jefferson, Tennessee on June 23, 1807 to the Rev. William and Jane (Wyatt) Witt.

Witt’s official training was as a physician, but he was involved in many community activities and along with Jonathan P. Creager and future business partner John Whippo, built Dublin’s first female seminary in 1835. Two years later Witt helped establish the Dublin Academy and along with his brother James and John Whippo built a foundry for manufacturing stoves and other household iron goods.

In 1839 John Whippo sold his share in the firm to two other Witt brothers, Caswell and Pleasant Witt, and in 1840 the four Witt Brothers erected a new factory on Dublin’s National Road (aka Cumberland St.). 

In addition to step stoves, the Witt brothers also manufactured reaping hooks, scythes, snatches and a novel grain cradle, which dominated the markets to the west for a number of years. As water power was unavailable, the plant’s machinery was powered by a horse-driven treadmill. 

Coincidently, during the 1860s and 1870s, John Whippo’s son, Charles Henry (b. 1830) worked as a traveling salesman for the Wayne Agricultural Co. 

The four Witt brothers - Caleb, James, Caswell and Pleasant - were well known to the residents of Dublin. Caleb was a minister in the United Brethren Church and he held services in a section of his Dublin foundry until a separate sanctuary was erected in 1846. 

Before he became an attorney, Caleb’s son Bennett Fryor Witt (b.1830, to Caleb and Elizabeth Mensch Witt), invented a number of farm implements and was granted 2 patents. 

In 1847 (some sources state 1845) the Witt’s sold the foundry to brothers James W. and Levi Lovell Lawrence. L. Lovell Lawrence was born in Monroe County, New York in 1821 to Erastus and Harriet (Woodford) Lawrence, his father a native of Vermont and his mother of Hartford, Connecticut. 

The Lawrence family relocated to Dublin and bought out the Witt Brothers interest in the Dublin Foundry. By that time the firm’s stoves were distributed in Eastern Indiana and Western Ohio by horse-drawn wagon. 

As Lawrence & Brother, the pair continued that business into 1852, when it was sold to a partnership headed by Caleb W. Witt, a former owner. Joining Witt in the enterprise as equal partners were William Hollingsworth and a foundry employee named Norton Davis, who began doing business as Hollingsworth, Davis & Co. 

Norton Davis was born on February 1, 1817, in Monroe County, New York and at the age of 20 came to Dublin. Davis found employment as a clock salesman for Abner T. Bond and in 1840 took a job with the Witt Bros.’ foundry. He remained with the firm when it became Lawrence & Bro., and when Caleb W. Witt repurchased a share in the firm, Davis became one of his partners. 

Incredible as it seem now, three successive partners in the Dublin Foundry - John Whippo, Levi Lovell Lawrence and Norton Davis - were all born in Monroe County, New York - whose largest city was, and remains, Rochester. It’s not known if the three knew each other back in New York, but they were likely drawn to Wayne County for the same reason - opportunity. 

The end of the American Revolution marked the start of a decades long migration from New England to Western New York State. Many early Western New York settlers who themselves had migrated from New England later journeyed west to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 

Known as internal immigration, these groups commonly settled in a community, developed their lands, sold out, and migrated once again, typically to the next frontier, which in the 1820s was Indiana. The 1850 census revealed that 24,310 then-current Indiana residents had been born in New York State. 

Included in those numbers were a significant number of former Monroe County, New York residents who had migrated to Wayne County, Indiana due in large part due to reports of Indiana’s favorable weather and increased farming and business opportunities - at the time undeveloped land could be purchased for as little as a dollar an acre.

The Dublin Foundry, which was now conducting business in the style of Hollingsworth, Davis, & Co. began to concentrate on the manufacture of small farm implements. Sometime around 1855 an East Germantown, Indiana investor named Samuel Binkley bought out William Hollingsworth’s one third share in the firm, and it was renamed Binkley, Davis & Co. 

In 1858 Samuel Binkley sold his share in the firm to Wilson Jones, his brother-in-law. Soon after, Caleb W. Witt withdrew from the firm and sold his third of the business to a former partner, L. Lovell Lawrence, and it was renamed Davis, Lawrence & Co. 

Caleb W. Witt was soon back in business as Witt-Butler & Co., a partnership formed with his son Bennett F. and Dublin wagon maker Anselm Butler. Their initial product was a grain reaper that initially held much promise. The device gathered the grain into a metal trough from which an operator who sat on the machine ejected the sheaf with a revolving rake. 

On July 7-8, 1858, Witt-Butler & Co. received their first premium at a grand trial of reapers in LaPorte, Indiana. A subsequent version, which was patented by Caleb W. Witt in 1860 used two binder/operators. An apron on the machine carried the reaped wheat up into a concave receiver in front of the binders’ twin seats. By taking turns, the binders took a bundle from the receiver and bound it with straw and tossed it upon the ground.

The entire apparatus was very heavy and was normally pulled by a team of four horses. 

Unfortunately it was quickly superseded by the self-binding reaper and the firm was out of business before it become well-known and extensively used. Witt-Butler’s first address (1858-1859) was E. Germantown (3 miles east of Dublin) although a later account states the factory was in Dublin. 

During the war Caleb W. Witt and his son Bennett F. who was now a lawyer, moved to Indianapolis where the latter practiced law. After the war Caleb W. Witt devoted all of his energies to the United Brethren Church and he passed away in Dublin in1880. 

24-year-old Wilson Jones and his family came to Cambridge City from their home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1834. Early on he earned a living as a shoe maker and farmer before joining his brother Alexander’s flourishing cooper shop in Milton in 1846. After two years he withdrew from the enterprise and became associated with John Calloway, Jerry Snofford and Jacob Kimmel in a flour mill which he operated for the next ten years.

For a short time he then ran a Milton dry goods store with Joseph Shissler, but soon moved to Indianapolis where he entered into grocery business with his brother-in-law, Samuel Binkley. In the meantime he had taken his savings and invested in Iowa real estate, at one time owning a reported 5,000 acres. In 1858 Jones returned to Wayne county and purchased his brother-in-law’s one-third share in Binkley, Davis & Co.

In 1868, Davis, Lawrence & Co. manufactured its first true vehicle, a freight wagon based on the popular Conestoga wagon, which was first built by German immigrants in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, township of Conestoga sometime in the late 1700s. 

The 16.5 long x 4.5 feet wide vehicle featured a slightly upward curving floor that prevented its contents from tipping and shifting during transport. A white canvas cover supported by huge wooden bows was often added to protect goods from inclement weather, and its massive wooden hubs were lubricated by tar-based grease, giving rise to its nick-name, “tar grinder”. 

On the 20th of January, 1871, Davis, Lawrence & Co. was reorganized with a capital stock of $80,000 as the Wayne Agricultural Co. Its officers were, Norton Davis, president; Levi Lovell Lawrence, vice-president; Wilson Jones, actuary; Albert L. Davis, secretary; Edmund Lawrence, treasurer. 

In 1871 the firm’s 60-75 hands produced $150,000 worth of farm implements. A period catalog advertised the following products: reapers, mowers, wheat drills, hay rakes, churners, coal stoves, grain binders, broadcast seeders, seeding machines, grain drills, corn planters, cultivators, harvesters, scales, platform scales, and fence machines. 

In 1872 Norton Davis resigned from the firm and L. Lovell Lawrence was made president. Davis purchased a 300 acre farm outside of Dublin which he held until his death in 1883. On November 17, 1873, the Wayne Agricultural Co. increased their capital stock to $100,000 and their factory’s payroll to 100. 

In 1875 the firm’s directors began searching for more suitable quarters, and due to the efforts of L. Lovell Lawrence and a Richmond-based businessman named David Sutton, an agreement was made with the city of Richmond, Indiana and construction of a new factory commenced. 

A number of the firm’s stockholders were opposed to the move, chief among them Wilson Jones, who consequently sold his share in the firm. The Dublin based Wayne Agricultural Co. was dissolved on October 16, 1875 and its assets were purchased by a Richmond-based firm with the same name. Headed by Levi Lovell Lawrence, the group of Richmond investors included; William Baxter, David Sutton, B.G. Kelley, Edward Sutton and Hugh Moffitt. At the firm’s first board meeting L. Lovell Lawrence was once again named president, William Baxter, vice-president, and Thadeus Wright, secretary. 

An 8-page catalog dating from 1882 depicted the following products: 

“THE RICHMOND CHAMPION GRAIN DRILL, RICHMOND BROAD CAST SEEDER, INDIANA WALKING CULTIVATOR, RICHMOND ROYCE REAPER, IMPROVED RICHMOND MOWER, MOON'S PATENT LEVER CUTTING BOX.

“THE ABOVE ARE ALL FIRST CLASS MACHINES, PROVED BY PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE.”

Apparently the firm had a satellite factory in Milton, Indiana which escaped a September 19, 1884 fire that destroyed much of the village. A period newspaper account states: “The Opera House, drug store, hotel, business houses, in fact almost everything except the Wayne Agricultural Works was burned.”

At the 1885 Indiana State Fair, Meal & Bradley, their Indianapolis distributor exhibited a full line of Richmond Champion products. The fair catalog descriptions follow:

“The Richmond Champion Planter. It has an adjustable seat, which throws the weight of the driver on the runners. It is either rigid or limber tongue, and has the shortest stroke of any planter.

“Also, the Richmond Check Rower. One set of pinions fit all machines; it has a patent jack, and it transfers the wire in four ways. The wire has a malleable link, and can be opened at any joint.

“Also, the Richmond Champion Grain Drill. It has spring hoes, and no break pins, and no chains on the hoes. The seat throws the entire weight off of the horses' necks. The operator can raise any or all the hoes without leaving his seat. The fertilizer attachment applies to cither old or new drills.

“Also, the one-horse Champion drill. The hoes can be raised from the ground by a lever, and it has spring hoes. When the hoes are thrown out of the ground, it is out of gear. It spreads easily by a crank.”

The firm’s agricultural products were well thought of and during the late 1800s the State of Kansas used a Richmond Champion Shoe Drill with press wheels to conduct seed yield experiments at Kansas State University’s Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station in Manhattan, Kansas.

The term “Richmond Champion” was used to distinguish the firm’s products from those manufactured by the Champion Machine Co. of Springfield, Ohio, who built grain drills and harvesting machines during the same time period.

Another Richmond, Indiana firm, the Hoosier Drill Company, also manufactured grain drills. Started by Joseph Ingels in 1857, it was originally based in Milton, Indiana until an 1868 reorganization which brought the firm to Richmond as the Hoosier Drill Company. Hoosier specialized in corn planting drills (hollow spikes that 'drilled' into the ground and deposited a seed) and broadcast seeders. In 1903 they became part of the American Seeding Machine Company which was absorbed by the Oliver Farm Equipment Company in 1929.

Jesse Parker Fulghum (b.1835) is credited with the design of a large number of Wayne Agricultural Co.’s machinery. Fulghum was raised in Randolph County, Indiana, the son of a carpenter named O.B. Fulghum. He was trained in the profession of his father and at the age of 20 relocated to Richmond, Indiana, where he found employment with Gaar, Scott, & Co., a threshing machine and steam traction engine manufacturer.

In 1864 Fulghum accepted the position of superintendent with Joseph Ingels, a Milton, Indiana seed drill manufacturer, and within a year’s time was made a partner. He was instrumental in the 1866 relocation of the Ingels Works to Richmond, Indiana where it was reorganized as the Hoosier Drill Company. He accepted the position of secretary of the new firm, but soon became dissatisfied with the arrangement and in 1868 he resigned and sold his share in the firm.

In 1869, he took a job as chief mechanic with the Wayne Agricultural Co. and during the next four years designed and patented a number of agricultural products for the Dublin manufacturer. In 1873 he moved back to Richmond as chief mechanic/engineer of the Hoosier Drill Co. 

Soon after the Wayne Agricultural Co. relocated to Richmond, Fulghum was hired back as their chief engineer, a position he held until the firm’s 1887 bankruptcy. He then went to work for the Micajah C. Henley, Richmond’s “Roller Skate King”. In 1884 Henley patented a roller skate bearing his name and in partnership with his son Harry, produced 15,000 "Chicago Skates" a week during the height of the roller skate craze (1885-1895).

Sometime after 1880 Lawrence retired and his post was taken by the firm’s vice-president, William Baxter. Prior to his association with the firm in 1876, Baxter had served as Wayne County’s representative in the Indiana State Senate.

Baxter was a prominent member of the Quaker Church and he was the main sponsor of a pro-temperance act which was passed by the Indiana legislature in 1873. Known as the Baxter Act, the bill enacted strict regulations on liquor traffic, and imposed severe penalties for their violation. 

Although most legislators were against the bill, they feared a backlash from pro-temperance voters if they voted against it, and the Indiana Governor likewise felt compelled to sign it into law. The Baxter Law was subsequently repealed as being “too prohibitive” in 1875. 

In late August, 1886 the Hon. William Baxter contracted typhoid fever, and on September 8, 1886, he passed away aged 63 years. As Baxter was one of Richmond’s leading citizens of the day, his passing put the future of the Wayne Implement Co. in jeopardy.

The firm’s creditors became nervous and although the firm’s December, 1886 financial statement revealed that the firm’s debt was fully $100,000 below its aggregate resources of $315,000, by May of 1887 $34,405 worth of obligations were past due and the firm’s largest creditors, among them the First National Bank of Richmond, called for a receiver.

On May 29, the State Court Judge appointed Thaddeus Wright receiver. He gave bond of $150,000 with James E. Reeves, Isaac Kinsey and Jesse Ostes as sureties. David Sutton was appointed the firm’s trustee.

In January of 1888 the firm’s assets were purchased for $26,600 by a new company consisting of Thomas Creamer, E.B. Clements, and W.W. Schultz. The partners announced that the new firm would “continue manufacturing the same line of agricultural implements as made by the old company.”

Richmond businessman, William G. Scott, the secretary of Gaar-Scott & Co., and vice-president (later president) of the Second National Bank of Richmond, was brought in as president of the reorganized firm. New stationary gave the firm’s name as Wayne Works Inc. and its officers were listed as follows; William G. Scott, president; Howard Campbell, vice-president; Edward B. Clements, treasurer; and Walter W. Schultz, secretary.

Although the majority of the firm’s sales remained in agricultural equipment, in the 1890s they began to offer light carriages, primarily buggies and sulkies in addition to their line of commercial farm wagons they had started manufacturing in 1868.

In 1892 the Kingsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio school district commissioned The Wayne Works to build them a wagon specifically designed to transport children to and from school. Wayne Works christened the vehicle a ”School Car” and it’s passenger compartment featured perimeter seating, with wooden bench seats facing the sides rather than the front of the vehicle as is now the normal configuration.

The first publicly-funded transportation of school children took place in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1869 and it was another quarter century before Mid-west school districts adopted the practice. By 1910, thirty states had pupil transportation programs in place and in 1919 Delaware and Wyoming became the last two states to enact public transportation funding. 

Wayne Work’s agricultural products continued to be marketed under the “Richmond Champion” brand name with grain drills and corn planters being their most successful lines. Although the firm was producing a small number of school cars at the time; road carts, delivery wagons and buggies made up the majority of their vehicle sales.

On February 11th, 1902 tragedy stuck the works as reported by the Fort Wayne Sentinel:

“Big Fire at Richmond

“Richmond, Ind., Feb. 12. – One of the worst fired in this city in recent years was tat of last night, in which the large plant of the Wayne agricultural works suffered a heavy loss and 250 men are thrown out of employment in the worst time of the year that men can be idle.

“The fire broke out early in the evening. The flames were first seen in the paint department. They spread rapidly east and north until the original plant was all included, and it was only by the hardest kind of work that the new portions were saved. The section burned included the wareroom with a large amount of goods ready for shipment, the painting and woodworking departments. It looked for a time as if the entire plant, including a yard of many thousands of dollars’ worth of lumber, would go. The loss is conservatively estimated at $75,000. It is fully covered by insurance.

“The company expects to rebuild and continue operations as speedily as possible. The fire is exceedingly unfortunate, as it comes at a very busy season of the year.”

When William G. Scott passed away unexpectedly in 1897 the firm’s secretary, Walter W. Schultz, took over as president and Edward B. Clements as factory manager. In 1901 Schultz commissioned his chief engineer, Jack St. John to build him an automobile. St. John developed an assembled 2-cylinder air-cooled touring car which was produced in very small numbers into 1904, when a larger 4-cylinder air-cooled touring debuted.

In its early days the car was occasionally called a Wayne, although its manufacturer never used that moniker. Several body styles debuted prior to 1910 when a new water-cooled 4-cylinder was substituted for the earlier air-cooled powerplant. By that time the car had grown in size and could now be considered a mid-sized automobile. Most Richmonds were sold locally and it had enjoyed a good reputation as a strong and reliable vehicle. A water-cooled six-cylinder Richmond debuted in 1914 as a companion to the substantially lower-priced four.

Between 1915 and early 1917 Wayne Works supplied the Herff-Brooks Corp. of Indianapolis, Indiana with Richmond automobiles built with a Herff-Brooks badge. Between 1913 and1917 national magazines listed the Herff-Brooks Corporation of Indianapolis as "General Sales Agents", rather than manufacturers.

The Herff brothers, George, Herbert and Jacob, were the Indianapolis distributor of the Marathon automobile, an assembled car first built in Jackson and later in Nashville, Tennessee. Just before Marathon went bankrupt in early 1914 H.H. Brooks, its sales manager, entered into an August 1913 partnership with the Herffs with the goal of finding a replacement vehicle that would keep both parties in business.

When the supply of Marathons was exhausted, the Herff-Brooks Corp. made a deal with Wayne Works to purchase white-label Richmonds which would then be re-badged as Herff-Brooks automobiles and then sold through the latter firm’s Indianapolis distributorship. Both 4- and 6-cylinder Richmonds were made available in the Herff-Brooks line. When Wayne Works discontinued production of the Richmond in early 1917, Herff-Brooks withdrew as well.

Richmond Production (may or may not include 1915-1917 Herff-Brooks): 1901, 1; 1902, 2; 1903, 5; 1904, 15; 1905, 25; 1906, 50; 1907, 50; 1908, 75; 1909, 100; 1910, 100; 1911, 100; 1912, 150; 1913, 150; 1914, 200; 1915, 200; 1916, 100; 1917, 25.

A handful of Richmonds are thought to remain, and one 1907 touring is owned by the Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond, Indiana. South Carolina automobile collector/appraiser Paul Ianuario owns the only known Herff-Brooks, a 1914 model built by Marathon in Nashville.

The failure of the Richmond coincided with increased competition in the farm implement field which was now dominated by huge firms such as International Harvester.

Luckily the recent popularity of the motor truck and Henry Ford’s Model T presented Wayne Works with new opportunities, and they began to develop a line of commercial bodies for motorized chassis. Before the start of the War they were offering a complete line of closed and open cabs, depot hacks, and both open and closed delivery van bodies.

One body in particular, the School Car, attracted the most attention. 

Built in 1914 on an extended wheelbase Model T chassis, the motorized School Car Body was based on their horse-drawn School Car Body, and featured a metal reinforced wooden structure with a single rear entrance and four padded bench seats.

The debut of Wayne’s motorized school car came at a time when the nation’s rural school district’s were receiving increased funding for transportation and although the firm’s school bus business didn’t take off until after the end of the First World War, they had their foot in the door and were poised to take advantage of the emerging market.

Declining rural populations, better roads and the emergence of the school bus all contributed to the end of one-room schools. In 1920 Indiana had 4,500 one-teacher schools; in 1945, just 616. The bus gave progressive educators a means to provide a more standardized education that was only possible in larger, centrally located schools.

Wayne Works built production automobile bodies for at least one outside automobile manufacturer in the late teens. George L. Moore a Minneapolis, Minnesota for dealers decided to build his own car to compete against the Model T and from 1916-1920 he manufactured the Moor Four which was priced at $550. Moore eventually ran into legal problems associated with the firm’s stock and in 1919 it relocated to Danville, Illinois. Between 1916 and its bankruptcy in 1920 approximately 1,000 Moores are thought to have been constructed.

During World War I, they manufactured hand grenades, machine gun shells, rations carts and field ovens.

After the War Wayne offered a complete line of cabs and commercial bodes for the Model T, and began to aggressively market their school busses in nationally distributed periodicals such as Bus Transportation, School Executive and School Board Journal.

John W. Clements Sr. became general manager and president of the company when his father, Edward B. Clements, died in 1920. It was John W. Clements who paved the way for the firm’s eventual dominance in the school bus business. His son, John W. Clements Jr., eventually joined the firm, becoming its vice-president of sales.

The following copy appeared in Wayne’s early 1920s commercial bus body brochures, which were produced for distribution by Commerce, GMC, Graham Bros. and Republic truck dealers:

“Hundreds of far-sighted men in all parts of the country have taken advantage of the inadequate, expensive and troublesome passenger transportation existing today and are making such conditions pay them a big dividend. They are taking the strap-hangers out of street cars and carrying them to their homes in comfort more quickly that the slow moving street car possible could. They are carrying men to and from work, putting them on the job in a frame of mind that means production. They are carrying passengers between tons and serving villages and cross-road communities that have heretofore been without transportation facilities, and they’re making money doing it.

“The Wayne Commercial Passenger Body and the G.M.C. Chassis will efficiently meet every demand for motor passenger transportation. This body is built and backed by a plant that has been building vehicle bodies for satisfied customers since 1868. It incorporates every improvement known to motor bus body building today. Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies are nationally acknowledged the ’standard’, the result of years of national experience and study in commercial passenger transportation. Wayne Bodies are always carried in stock and can be furnished to G.M.C. dealers and distributors fitted and ready to mount on the G.M.C. chassis immediately upon arrival.

“Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies are furnished in two types, Series No. 700 and Series No. 900. The former have an inside height of 56 inches at center with left hand front and center rear entrances; the latter have an inside height of 66 inches, with entrances at right hand front and center rear. Both types have a body width of60 inches and are supplied for the G.M.C. chassis, either in twelve or fourteen foot lengths. The twelve-foot body has a comfortable seating capacity of eighteen adults; the fourteen foot comfortable seats twenty-two. Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies are specially constructed to fit without alteration on the G.M.C. chassis.

“Wayne interiors, with their natural wood finish; the Wayne patented windows, automatically adjustable to twelve equal positions of outside opening – the wide spacious aisles, the deep automobile spring cushions and incomparable upholstering, are but a few of the details which insure to these superior bodies the deserved supremacy that they have won. They transform a Wayne equipped passenger car into a gas-driven Pullman. Passengers request Wayne equipped cars because of their exclusive features.

“The Wayne commercial passenger body is America’s standard. Fifty-two years of production – a modern million-dollar plant – a happy group of contented, highly efficient workmen – these are the foundation stories of Wayne reputation for superiority. Construction under such conditions has reached its finest example in Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies. No detail is left untouched that will assure these bodies longer life or more reliable service. As a result of the care and attention given to every detail of design construction and finish, Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies do stand up in service, meeting the strains of the road and the grinding wear of the pavement.

“Building the best Commercial Passenger Body in America is the accomplishment of the Wayne organization.

“Wayne Bodies unfailingly meet the essential requirements of correct transportation. They stand up under the hardest service. Reinforced at every point of stress, designed for beauty and comfort as well as strength, with all material undergoing the most rigid inspection, it is the achievement of the century in body construction.

“From the timber tracts owned and developed by the company are obtained the finest body-building materials. Carefully seasoned and kiln-dried, the wood that goes into Wayne Commercial Passenger Bodies insures them for years to come against the run-down and ‘rackety’ appearance of bodies less carefully constructed. Wayne bodies are absolutely water-proof. On account of Wayne patented construction, water must run uphill to enter.

“A special Body catalog on request.

“There are innumerable enterprises demanding superior passenger transportation. The Wayne special 32-page descriptive catalogue in colors discusses this matter fully and covers completely all body details. Every G.M.C. dealer should have a copy. In addition it contains all construction and technical data of Wayne bodies and accessories. Where may we send your copy?

“The Wayne Works ‘Since 1868’ Richmond, Indiana, USA”

In 1922 Wayne offered a specially outfitted coach they called the Wayne Touring Home which according to the flyer “Opens the Doors of the World”. The 12’to19’ bodies were available in two heights, the standard 56” and a high-headroom 76” version which allowed its used to walk upright inside of the coach.

The Literature explained:

"Height has but one advantage, an extreme height permits standing erect. It is very doubtful that the occupants are on their feet in the body for one-half hour out of 24. Exercise is taken outdoors, not in the home. Even in cooking, an erect position is not necessary. Without leaving the comfortable seat provided, the cook can prepare and serve meals with ease."

Constructed of the same materials as Wayne’s school bus bodies – iron-reinforced wood frame & plywood panels - the touring coach included a built-in stowable 56” x 76” bed on one side of the rear compartment and a small kitchenette with a moveable bench seat on the other. The interior could be easily re-arranged from daytime eating and entertaining to a comfortable sleeping chamber in a matter of minutes.

Options included a potable water system (water bag), an auxiliary bed, a canvas awning, a tool kit, built-in cabinetry and a full compliment of kitchen utensils.

As had most commercial body builders, by the late-twenties Wayne had adopted a steel-paneled wood-framed construction for most all of their bus and commercial bodies.

Despite claims to the contrary, Albert L. Luce Sr. did not build the first all-steel school bus in 1927. The Model T bus he constructed in 1927 was a typical steel-sheathed wood-framed body. Bluebird’s all-steel bodies would not be built until the mid Thirties.

Wayne Works introduced the industry’s first all-steel school bus body in 1930. The event marked the most dramatic step forward in bus body safety. By the mid Thirties, they had added heavy-duty "collision rails" around the bodies at the passenger seat level, providing substantially increased protection.

The second firm to build an all-steel school bus body was Lima, Ohio’s Superior Body Co. which introduced their all-steel body in early 1931. Safety glass was standard equipment, and they can rightly claim credit for the first all-steel school bus with safety glass. It was available as an option on Wayne’s buses, but did not become standard equipment for a couple more years.

Both firms continued to offer metal sheathed wood-framed bodies for a couple of years, but by 1933 all of Wayne Works’ buses were built entirely of steel.

Early All-steel Wayne bodies were assembled using bolts, not rivets and were typically shipped completely knocked down (CKD) to one of Wayne’s numerous authorized distributors who would then assemble the body and mount it on a customers chassis. This gave the firm a distinct advantage in the marketplace and quickly propelled them to the nation’s number one manufacturer of school buses.

Although safe automobiles were a tough sell in the early thirties, safe school buses were another matter entirely. Although the nation wasn’t as safety conscious as today’s nanny state, school boards at the time were easily convinced that an all steel body was safer than an all-wood or metal-skinned, wood-framed body.

When coupled with the potential savings in fuel and insurance that the lighter all-metal bodies could provide, school boards were typically willing to spend the extra money to purchase the all steel units, despite the fact that the nation was still suffering the long-term affects of the Depression.

As the all-steel school buses took to the road, a handful of accidents occurred and as Wayne Works advertised in 1933, not a single child had been killed in a Wayne all-metal school bus:

“Fire Proof! Crash Proof! Splinter Proof! Greatest Safety! Longest Life! With Wayne’s All-Steel Construction.

“You can’t afford less than the very safest school bus bodies for transporting the children of your community. And Wayne All-Steel School Bus Bodies are the safest you can buy because they’re steel throughout. No child for whom you are responsible will ever be killed through crash or fire in a Wayne Bus Body – because of Wayne’s all-steel construction. There is nor real safety except that of all-steel construction – and Wayne brings you the most modern all-steel school bus body you can buy. Wayne school bus bodies are crush proof, splinter proof, and fire proof – super strong and super safe!

“Not only are Wayne All-Steel School Bus Bodies the safest, but they are the most economical to own and operate. Wayne’s exclusive all-steel construction makes them last much longer, and materially reduces dead weight – at no sacrifice in strength. Lighter gross weight assures substantial savings in operating expenses.

“Your school children deserve Wayne’s safety in transportation – and an All-Steel Wayne School Bus Body is the only way you can be sure they have it. Not one child – of the millions carried by Wayne-equipped buses – has ever lost its life while riding to or from school in a Wayne All-Steel Bus Body! Since Wayne assures greatest safety and real economy, you owe it to yourself and your taxpayers to see that the children of your community ride in Wayne All-Steel School Bus Bodies only!

“There are no welds to tear, no rivets to come loose or shear, and no wood screws to fall out. Wayne bodies are through-bolted exclusively”

Once the word got out, districts from around the country scraped together the necessary funds to purchase new school buses, and the resulting sales helped Wayne, and their competitors weather the Depression.

Wayne also marketed their new all-steel bodies to railroads, liveries, bus lines and metropolitan transit authorities. Available in PAYE (pay as you enter) City Service or luxuriously appointed Inter-City Service versions, the same all-steel attributes applied.

By the end of the decade school bus chassis had become a big business and the following manufacturers offered either purpose-built bus chassis or complete buses; ACF-Brill, Aerocoach, Brockway, Buick, CCF, Chevrolet, Commerce, Diamond T, Dodge Bros., Fageol, Fargo, Federal, Ford, FWD., Garford, Gar Wood, GMC, Graham, Hug, Indiana, International, Kenworth, Mack, Oldsmobile, Pierce-Arrow, Reo, Safeway, Sterling, Stewart, St. Louis Car, Studebaker, Twin Coach, White, Willys-Overland and Yellow Coach. 

In 1936 Wayne introduced a new line of streamlined all-steel bodies, which are outlined in the following transcription of a 1936 mailer:

“Four Sensational New Lines for 1936 

“ For 1936 Wayne offers four remarkable new lines of All Steel Bus Bodies, featuring the ‘Standard’, the ‘Streamline’, the’ Deluxe Streamline’, and the ‘Metropolitan’. These new All-Steel Waynes continue to bring you the absolute safety that is available only in Wayne All-Steel construction – and the long life and low cost which Waynes have proven year after year, in all types of service, and under all operating conditions. In addition, the new 1936 Wayne line sets a new high mark for modern styling and all-steel construction.

“New Features in the Wayne 1936 Line – All models have six-inch lower body skirts, making complete units lower to the ground, and greatly improving appearance. All conventional models carry ventilating windshields, thus assuring passenger and driver comfort in any climate. All bodies are of double-wall construction, being fully paneled inside with meal. Full automatic vacuum entrance door controls are provided with folding type doors. These are standard on all school and city service models. The complete lighting systems, both inside and outside the buses, assure both safety and comfort to driver and passengers. Recessed license bracket, and the absence of outside steps, prevent unwanted riders. All bodies are rust-proofed through dipping in oxide primer, baking, and then spraying on final color finish.”

The July 12, 1937 issue of the Charleston Gazette contained the following article/advertisement:

“The New Wayne All-Metal Streamline Bus Body

“Seventy years ago the Wayne Works of Richmond, Ind., built the first vehicle ever used solely for transporting children to and from school. Of necessity, it was wood and drawn by horses.

“In the four years just past the Wayne organization had built and sold more school bus bodies than all other similar manufacturers combine, according to the state distributor, the Baker Equipment Engineering Co., 404 Morris Street, Charleston.

“In use in every county in West Virginia, the various county school boards last year gave the Wayne body its decided preference, approximately 85 percent of all bus bodies purchased in 1936 come from the plant in Richmond, Ind. And though West Virginia has no requiring it, all school bus bodies purchased were all-metal. There are 500 Wayne bodies in use in the state.

“Largest Ever Built.

“School children in Calhoun county ride in the longest bus body ever built, a Wayne, with a wheelbase of 285 inches, which has a capacity of 115. Other sizes in use in this and other states range incapacity from 40 to more than 100.

“Wayne is not only the oldest; it also is the largest manufacturer of school bus bodies.

“The Wayne all-steel body is popular, officials of the Baker Equipment Engineering Co. said, principally for its exceptional strength, and one that will not crush in case of overturn or accident. The new models, one of which is shown above, has been manufactured so as to be the safest and strongest ever built. They are crash-proof, splinter-proof, fire-proof, and a new super-strong frame interlocks securely the roof, sides, front, rear and floor sections.

“Air is Controlled.

“Weather proof, the bodies have controlled movement of air in any weather or climate. Seating arrangements can be arranged for any requirements. 

“Another distinct feature is that the body can be shortened or lengthened at any time to meet changing conditions, which have saved school boards, it was said, many thousands of dollars.

“Charles Foutche is the president of the local company, Hugh Campbell, vice-president.”

Although the first Wayne-built School Car debuted in 1892, not 1877 as the article infers, the rest of the facts are slightly more accurate. Wayne first true vehicle, a Conestoga-style wagon, was built in 1868. 1876 was the year they moved to Richmond, Indiana.

Because of Wayne’s through bolted construction, their sectional bodies could be easily repaired when damaged in an accident. Additionally existing bodies could be shortened or lengthened as desired by simply unbolting the body panels and either removing or inserting a section in the middle and bolting it back together.

In 1938 Wayne offered a Gemmer forward control option for bodies built on conventional chassis. A transcription of Wayne’s advertisement for the Gemmer Full Forward Control Unit follows:

“Expertly Engineered.

“The Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion was designed fro the Wayne Works, well-known body manufacturers of Richmond, Indiana, by the eminent automotive engineer, Mr. G.A. Gemmer, who designed the original line of Gemmer Steering Gears and founded the Gemmer Manufacturing Company, the largest independent steering gear manufacturer in the world. Mr. Gemmer was, for over twenty years, vice-president and chief engineer for one of the largest truck manufacturers.

“More than a year was spent in engineering, designing and testing this unit, and thousands of conventional chassis have been converted into full forward control models with it. Chassis so equipped are now operating all over the United States and in many places elsewhere, both as buses and as freight carriers. The conversion has been thoroughly tested, in normal operation, under every conceivable condition.

“Now available separately – for Any Chassis.

"Formerly, the Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion was obtainable only with the purchased of one of Wayne Works’ Metropolitan Type Bus Bodies, but the Forward Control Division of Wayne Works has been sold and this conversion is now available as a separated unit, without restrictions as to the body to be used.

“A Full Forward Control.

“The Gemmer Conversion is a FULL Forward Control, not semi-forward as is the case with Cab-Over-Engine types. The driver is located much father forward and to the left or the right of the driver’s position with C-O-E models. HE is seated directly above either the left or right front wheels. 

“His seat is only 9½ inches above the conventional driver’s seat – never more than 2- to 5 inches above the level of the passengers seats in buses – properly placing him for driving, as well as the collection if fares, and general supervision of passengers or load.

“The driver is raised far enough to place him above the tops of passenger cars and glare of oncoming traffic, yet the seat is not difficult of access. He has an unencumbered view of the road, which makes for safety, sureness, faster headway, easier operation and greater maneuverability in every way. 

“Increases Capacity 26% to 30%.

“With the Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion, the driver is moved from 45 to 57 inches forward of the normal position, the exact distance depending, of course, on the make and model of the converted chassis. This makes possible an increase in passenger or loading capacity of from 26% to 30% on the same chassis.

“No Mutilation of the Chassis.

“The unit has been so designed that it installs in any chassis without mutilating it in any way. Some chassis parts are, of course, removed, but none are altered, and the chassis is not changed. All parts that are removed cam be re-installed later if the conversion is removed.

“Conversion Unit Interchangeable.

“The Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion Unit can be applied to one chassis model as readily as to another ad, after it has been installed and used on one chassis, it may be taken off and reinstalled on a new one of any make or model at low cost.

“The unit is so sturdily constructed that it will usually outlast the useful life of several chassis, enabling the bus or freight carrier operator to remove his conversion, install it on a new chassis, and sell the old one as a standard truck or bus.

“In this way, the operator is not required to write off the entire cost of the conversion on one chassis, or to use the chassis for its original purpose long after it has ceased to be practical or economical for that particular application. Thus, he can operate on the ‘cream’ of the chassis, where operating costs are the lowest.

“Increases Chassis Turnover.

“Because of this interchangeability feature, the chassis dealer or distributor can carry a full line of forward control models in stock by merely carrying a nominal stock of Gemmer Conversion Units. Thus he will be in a position to give immediate delivery of full forward control models, without duplicating his chassis stock.

“In this way, faster turnover is assured, with a comparatively small investment. Of course, the unit may as readily be mounted on any chassis now in operation as on a new one.

“Motor Easily Serviced.

“With the Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion Unit, there is easy access to the engine from the top, sides (through properly located service plates), or from below. If it should be necessary to remove the engine and install a new one, the work can usually be accomplished in less than two hours. The engine is removed and replaced through the body front. 

“Thus both routine servicing operations and major overhaul work are simplified and speeded by the ‘accessibility engineering’ in the Gemmer Conversion. All points of the engine, clutch and gearbox are quickly and easily reached.

“This eliminates unusual labor expenses in even extreme cases of motor maintenance and keeps the bus or freight carrier on the job. The service hours thus saved, and the more accurate workmanship thus made possible are directly creditable to the Gemmer Full Forward Control’s many economies and represent actual money in the operator’s pocket.

“Unnecessary Parts Can Be Returned For Credit.

“In most instances, chassis to be used with Gemmer Fulll Forward Control Conversions can be ordered minus certain features and parts. The elimination of these items considerably reduces the price of the chassis, so that the savings materially offset the cost of the conversion unit. A complete list of the parts omitted is given on the back page of this folder.

“Prompt Delivery.

“Gemmer Full Forward Control Conversion Units are packed complete, sub-assembled, and ready in every way for easy, low-cost installation, and are available for prompt delivery. Shipment can usually be made within one week after receipt of purchase order.”

George Andrew Gemmer was chief engineer of the National Motors Mfg. Co. of Irvington, NJ, the manufacturers of the Day-Elder truck. He had earlier founded the Gemmer Manufacturing Co., 741 Merrick Avenue, Detroit, Michigan, a longtime manufacturer of steering gears. Gemmer’s worm drive steering gears were licensed to ZF Friedrichshafen AG a German manufacturer who marketed them as ZF-Gemmer steering gears. 

A rise in fatal school bus accidents resulted in an April 1939 conference in New York City where representatives from all 48 states gathered to develop a set of national standards for school bus construction and operation. The symposium was chaired by Frank W. Cyr, a Columbia University professor and a former superintendent of the Chappell, Nebraska school district.

The conference was attended by representatives of the bus body industry and at the end of the 7-day event the group released a list of minimum standards and recommendations. Among them were specifications for type of construction, body length, ceiling height and aisle width and color.

Strips of different colors were hung from the wall and the participants in the conference slowly narrowed down the colors until three slightly different shades of yellow remained.

National School Bus Chrome became the chosen shade with slight variations allowed as yellow was a difficult color to reproduce exactly. Yellow had been decided upon because it provided good visibility in the semi-darkness of early morning and late afternoon.

Since then, 12 National School Transportation Conferences have been held, giving state and industry representatives a forum to revise existing and establish new safety guidelines operating procedures for school buses.

For many years the Federal Government allowed he industry to regulate itself, but they became directly involved in motor vehicle safety with the passing of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966. A School Bus Safety Amendment was passed in 1974, and since that time the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued 36 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) which apply to school buses.

Wayne manufactured approximately 300 pusher type sectional-bodied forward control buses on rear-engined Reo chassis between 1941 and 1946. The sectional pusher style bus was originally designed by Christian J. Hug, the builder of the Hug Truck, in the mid 1930s. The sectional-bodied Wayne pusher chassis was abandoned after the War in favor of a new mid-engined forward control bus that Wayne marketed as the Transicoach.

In May of 1941 the Hicks Body Co. of Lebanon, Indiana, another school bus body builder, sued Wayne Works for $500,000 alleging that Wayne Works distributed letters designed to injure the credit and business reputation of the Lebanon concern. The case went to trial in 1944 and Hicks was eventually awarded $35,000 in compensation.

The penalty proved of little significance as Wayne Works had won a contract at the start of the war to supply ambulance bodies for the US Army. The World War II-era Dodge SNL G-657 Mast Parts List included the following body suppliers:

American Coach & Body Co., Cleveland, Ohio - Emergency Repair bodies.
Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co., Detroit, Michigan - Cargo and Reconnaissance bodies.
Gar Wood Industries, Detroit, Michigan - Dump bodies.
Highway Trailer Co., Edgerton, Wisconsin - Telephone Installation bodies.
Proctor-Keefe Body Co., Detroit, Michigan - Carry-All bodies.
Wayne Works, Richmond, Indiana - Ambulance bodies.

The Wayne-built Dodge T214-WC54 was the most common ambulance used by the Allies during World War II, with 22,857 examples. The ¾ ton Dodge four-wheel-drive chassis were built at Dodge’s newly constructed Mound Rd. Assembly Plant in Detroit then shipped to Richmond where the ambulance bodies were constructed on the chassis.

Deliveries of the ambulance began in May 1942 and the design was standardized on October 23, 1942. A little less than 10% of all 255,173 ¾ ton Dodge T214 chassis built from 1942-1945 were turned into ambulances. 

They Dodge chassis arrived in Richmond with the hood, radiator, cowl, V-windshield, front doors and fenders intact – essentially everything from the a-pillar forward. Wayne constructed the entire body from the firewall back and a noticeable seam just above the windshield marks the start of Wayne’s bodywork.

The driver and medic could enter the rear compartment without exiting the vehicle, although most passengers entered the ambulance through the double rear doors which were located above a folding rear step.  The all-steel body was lined with Masonite and twin longitudinal folding benches providing seating for 7 ambulatory patients. Roof-mounted slings and wall brackets held 2 stretchers at shoulder height and if the rear bench seats were folded up, two more stretchers could be placed on the floor.

The rear compartment was ventilated and spare tires were carried in recessed wells built into the rear compartment just behind the full-length side doors. Most WC-54s included a pistol-operated spotlight and a pioneer tool kit mounted on the outside of the ambulance body. The right front fender included a jerry-can holder and a siren was occasionally mounted on the left fender.

A small number of WC-54s were fitted with large whip antennas and field radios, indicating they did double duty as radio cars. During the War WC-54s were used by the US Army Medical Corps, the British Royal Army Medical Corps and the Free French Forces. After the war the US Army presented thousands of used WC-54s to their European allies under a lend-lease arrangement and the sturdy vehicles remained in use into the 1960s in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, the Netherlands and Norway.

During the war Wayne Works also constructed mobile machine shops, military buses and semi-trailer bus bodies for transporting war workers some of which could carry up to 150 passengers. The semi-trailer buses were built on deep-drop frame trailer chassis and included a streamlined front end module that was fitted above the fifth wheel of the semi-tractor two vehicle.

In 1946, the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, a small narrow-gauge line based in Colorado, purchased 3 Wayne bus bodies for use on three of their Galloping Goose hybrid railcars. Originally constructed during the 1930s, the unusual vehicles were constructed using highly modified truck chassis that were attached to an integral freight/passenger rail car body.

The original Geese were built using Pierce-Arrow bodies and chassis, and by 1946 the single car mixed-use vehicles were in a sad state. The railroad retrofitted the vehicles with surplus GMC truck engines and Wayne Bus bodies, and they continued to serve the railroad’s Durango to Ridgeway route into the early 1950s.

Following the war Wayne heavily advertised their investment in a new Bonderizing plant, an automated line that applied a zinc phosphate coating (Bonderite) to their bodywork in order to provide a better bonding surface for primer, paint or lacquer.

The following transcription is from a 1948 Bonderizing brochure:

“Wayne is the only school bus body that is protected by ‘Bonderite’ – to prevent destruction of the metal by rust and corrosion. To provide that protection, Wayne has installed a fully automatic Bonderizing plant. Over 675 feet long, at a cost of $250,000.

“There is no longer need to depend on the human element for thoroughness in rust and corrosion prevention. Except for loading, unloading and hand priming of parts that cannot be covered thoroughly by automatic spray, all operations are automatic.

“Parts are loaded on an endless conveyor, then each piece is:

1. Passed through an emulsion type cleaner, heated to 160 degrees, and sprayed at high velocity. To remove all grease and dirt;
2. Passed through a hot water rinse;
3. Given the non-metallic phosphate, rust-inhibiting ‘Bonderote’ coating;
4. Passed through a cold water rinse to remove any ‘Bonderite’ residue that have not reacted chemically with the metal;
5. Rinsed with chloride-phosphuric acid, to ‘set’ the coating and etch the ‘Bonderite’ surface (to hold the primer more firmly);
6. Dried for five minutes at a temperature of 350 degrees F;
7. Given a coat of zinc chromate primer or (if the part is not to be painted) a coat of black asphalt primer;
8. Primer is baked on at 350 degrees in a 220-foot oven, through which the conveyor moves at the rate of ten feet per minute;
9. The part is then unloaded from the conveyor, carefully inspected, and warehoused. It requires an hour and fifteen minutes for a part to travel through this plant and receive the complete ‘Bonderizing’ treatment.”

On August 8, 1948 900 UAW workers at the Richmond plant walked off the job following the discharge of several employees in the paint department as a result of a dispute over the application a piecework scale. A company spokesman said the company offered to arbitrate the dispute and the workers returned to work soon after.

A second, nationwide United Auto Workers strike forced the closure of the plant on November 1st, 1948. On December 2, 1848 a Wayne Works spokesman announced that they were in talks “regarding the future of the plant” with the Ford Motor Co. The national union ended their strike in February and the plant reopened on February 21st, 1949.

It turned out that the talks with Ford were in regards to a new Ford-branded bus that was to be built by Wayne Works and the Union City Body Co. of Union City, Indiana. The Ford contract ran from 1949 to 1950, when Ford entered into a contracted with Marmon-Herrington for their buses. 

Just before the strike, Wayne Works and its West coast distributor, the Crown Coach Co. entered into a joint venture, Transicoach Inc., in order to market a revival of C.J. Hug's sectional bus. The Transicoach was a low­cost underfloor-engined forward-control school bus with a Hercules engine and 5-speed Fuller transmission mounted amidships on a Reo-supplied chassis. Only 200 Transicoaches were sold before the Richmond, Indiana-based Transicoach Inc. was dissolved in 1950. 

After the War a number of major Wayne distributors issued their own co-branded Wayne Bus catalogs, among them Crown Coach in California, Hercules-Campbell in New York, and Baker Equipment Engineering Co. in West Virginia.

By that time there were over 50 authorized Wayne distributors and the firm hard partnered with H.V. Welles Ltd., the Canadian distributor of Marmon-Herrington drive-trains and Dearborn truck cabs. 

Based in Windsor, Ontario, H.V. Welles also maintained a satellite branch in Toronto. Originally called the Warford Corp. of Canada, it was established in 1925 to distribute Warford transmissions in Canada. The Warford was a popular aftermarket Ford Model T/Model A transmission that enabled a much higher cruising speed. The firm also manufactured heavy-duty drive-train conversions which allowed Model Ts to be converted into 1½-ton trucks.  

Halsey V. Welles, the firm’s owner, reorganized it as H.V. Welles Ltd. in 1929. Welles specialized in aftermarket products for Fords, and they became the Canadian distributor of Thornton 2-axle drive conversion units in the 1930s. Later in the decade they became the Canadian distributor for Transportation Engineers Inc., the Detroit manufacture of Dearborn Ford COE truck cabs.

Like Proctor-Keefe in Detroit, Welles modified standard Ford panels vans and sedan deliveries into specialty vehicles. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s they built a number of paddy wagons, invalid coaches and municipal ambulances and coroners’ hearses, almost always on Ford chassis.

A small fleet of 1940 Ford ambulances built on standard Ford 122" 1-ton cab and chassis were bodied by Welles for use by the Canadian Air Force. The bodies featured an unusually wide humpbacked rear compartment that gave its military occupants a few additional inches of both head and shoulder room. 

During World War II Welles outfitted a large number of Canadian Army vehicles with Thornton and Marmon-Herrington drive systems and also produced service bodies for the Allies. After the War the firm was reorganized as Welles Corp. and they became the sole Canadian distributor of Wayne Works bus bodies. 

Welles became the sole Canadian distributor of Wayne Works school buses in 1948, and when Marmon-Herrington started selling their buses in Canada in 1950, Welles distributed them. To avoid any conflicts, Welles set up two subsidiaries; Welles-Marmon-Herrington Corp. Ltd. and Welles-Wayne Corp. Ltd. 

By late 1949 Wayne Works’ board of directors had grown tired of the stranglehold the United Auto Workers appeared to hold over the firm’s future, and decided to put the firm up for sale. An attractive prospectus was sent out to prospective buyers and in early 1950 an interested party made a visit to Richmond. 

Newton Glekel (1914-2007), a successful New York real estate investor and partner in the law firm of Glekel & Drimmer, was in Indianapolis hoping to acquire some business property. Although that deal was scrapped, he decided to take a look at Wayne Works’ Richmond facility, whose availability he had been alerted to. 

Gleckel founded Glekel & Drimmer in1938 with fellow Columbia University law graduate Harold L. Drimmer (1914-2005). Located at 521 Fifth Avenue, New York, the law firm specialized in real estate and by 1944 had abandoned all outside work, concentrating on the partners’ holdings which included the publishing house of J.J. Little & Ives. 

In December of 1950 the Jeffrey Ives Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of J.J. Little & Ives, purchased the Clements family’s holdings in Wayne Works and became its new owner. 

500 members of UAW local 721 struck Wayne Works on February 1, 1951 after negotiations between the union and company officials over increased wages broke off. The two parties came to terms and the strike ended shortly thereafter. 

In 1952 Wayne introduced their new “Curv-a-Corner” rear windows that offered 156% more rearward vision than competing designs and gave the bus driver a “panoramic” view of the road. 

Their 1954 advertising stated that the Wayne was: 

“The Bus Body Designed by 18,000 Experts”

“This wonderful new Wayne – by far the ‘Safest Bus Body Ever Built’ – was truly designed in great measure by the ‘experts’ themselves… the buyers… the users!

“Comprehensive questionnaires (with an earnest appeal for ‘All the suggestions you and your drivers and associates may have for making bus bodies STILL SAFER’ were submitted by WAYNE’s Department of Safety Research to 7,575 Public School Superintendents, 3,198 Stat and County Transportation Directors and 8,039 Pastors and Parochial Schools… with Wayne’s promise that all resulting suggestions would receive ‘conscientious consideration and development’.

“We were literally amazed by the reaction (a virtual deluge of thousands of suggestions) – and by the surprisingly high percentage which proved practical under the exacting scrutiny of our engineers!

“Together they are the greatest step forward in bus body safety engineering since Wayne pioneered the industry’s first all-steel body in 1930! For example:

“88% of the filled-in questionnaires suggested greater driver vision without loss of body strength… 84% asked for dry wall construction which would offer safer window-escape area than existing 7-to-9inch window openings… 70% suggested mar-proof inner walls … 69% noted that, while they preferred bolted construction to riveting or spot welding, they would like to see ‘still-tighter’ fastening… 57% asked for ‘adequate defrosting of window at driver’s left’… 56% suggested improved entrance doors and door control… 42% suggested a ‘kick-out’ windshield… 71% suggested truly air-tight dirt seal…

“… and so on and on, with hundreds of buyers, users and drivers suggesting scores of the many other improvements you’ll find in this ‘Safest Bus Body Ever Built’!”

In January of 1954, Wayne Works purchased the Meteor Motor Car Co. of Piqua, Ohio and on March 19, 1956 Wayne announced the acquisition of another Ohio professional car builder, the A.J. Miller Company of Bellefontaine, Ohio.

Under this new conglomerate, the company would now be called Miller-Meteor. A.J. Miller's Bellefontaine plant was sold and manufacturing was consolidated at Meteor's Piqua, Ohio plant which was located at 125 Clark Avenue.

From day one, Miller-Meteor built exclusively on the Cadillac commercial chassis and the first Miller-Meteor coaches debuted in 1957. The new firm was an immediate success and had captured 50% of the professional car market by 1962.

In 1956 Glekel & Drimmer entered into negotiations with the board of directors of Divco, a route delivery truck manufacturer based in Warren, Michigan, hoping to merge Wayne Works with Divco.

The merger made sense as both firms specialized in manufacturing specialty vehicles, and as leaders in their respective fields, they hoped to maintain their respective positions through economies of scale provided by a centralization of their engineering, purchasing and distribution activities.

Both firms’ 1955 sales were in the neighborhood of $12-13 million. Wayne controlled 25% of the nation’s school bus market, Miller-Meteor controlled 30% of professional car manufacturing and Divco held 75% of the dairy truck business.

On November 1st, 1956 Divco Corp. acquired the assets of Wayne Works, Inc. which was reorganized as Divco-Wayne Corp. Although Divco’s directors didn’t realize it at the time, the merger would ultimately prove to be a carefully orchestrated takeover of Divco by Glekel & Drimmer. 

Glekel spent most of August 1956 negotiating the deal, and the proposed merger was announced on August 27, 1956. Much of Glekel & Drimmer’s stock was actually owned by members of their respective families, and prior to the merger the pair had formed Richmond Industries to shield their Wayne holdings from prying eyes.

When Divco’s shareholders voted to approve the purchase of Wayne Works they did not realize that Glekel & Drimmer’s cleverly disguised 26% stake in Divco-Wayne Corp. would make them the majority shareholder. Within five years of the “merger” all former Divco directors and executives but one were gone. Drimmer became chairman of Divco-Wayne and Glekel, president.

Although the merger proved fatal for former Divco executives, Glekel and Drimmer did a good job of running Divco-Wayne from its new corporate headquarters in Manhattan. In 1958 Divco-Wayne purchased the Electronics division of Gruen Watch Co. for $1.5 million in an attempt to diversify into aerospace, but after a year of lackluster profits, it was sold off.

At about the same time Glekel and Drimmer entertained a merger with Studebaker-Packard a struggling automaker based in South Bend, Indiana. The shrewdly determined predicted that Divco-Wayne had the most to lose and the negotiations were soon terminated.

During the 1930s Ernest Ravinet organized Wayne Works’ export division which was later spun off as a separate unit, called Wayne Export. Ravinet and Timothy Gomez oversaw the firm which specialized in selling CKD (completely knocked down) Wayne Works bus bodies to the firm’s 20 overseas distributors and assembly facilities. As of 1957 Wayne Works’ bus bodies were in use in 60 different countries.

A July 1957 issue of the Richmond Palladium-Item included the following description of Wayne Works’ current facilities which were located in downtown Richmond on the north side of North E Street, between 9th and 10th Sts.:

“About a dozen expansions have taken place locally since the plant moved to Richmond from Dublin in 1875 into a building of 7,362 sq. ft., now used as the blacksmith’s shop.

“In 1887 the present office building was put up. It added 49,900 sq. ft. and was first used for manufacturing. Others followed in 1910, 1912, and 1914.

“No other buildings were added until 1930 when a small one was constructed for storage and warehousing.

“Biggest expansion occurred in 1937-38 when Wayne completed an additional 302,100 sq. ft. of area used for its rust-proofing plant with a modern automotive conveyor system fabricating, painting, assembly storage, and other manufacturing operations.

“Lesser expansions took place in 1951 and 1952. At present construction is under way to increase the capacity of one of its buildings. A new metal building adding 4,490 sq. ft. is being built for lettering, paint touch-up and warehousing.

“Wayne has more than a half million sq. ft. of manufacturing area, in addition to about 127 acres east of the city were finished bus bodies are stored – until sold, - or prior to shipment.”

Although Divco production was never consolidated with Wayne Works, a number of specialty vehicles were produced using the mid-sized Divco Dividend delivery truck which debuted in 1955.

One cooperative venture was the 1959 Divco-Wayne Bantam Bus which mated a Divco Dividend cab/chassis with an unusual mid-sized bus body built at the Divco plant with seats and windows supplied by Wayne Works. It was an early take on the now-popular airport bus/limousine but with only 84 examples produced between 1959 and 1961, the Bantam was dropped.

Marginally more successful was another Dividend-based variant, the Divco-Wayne Emergency Rescue Truck. The vehicle was outfitted by Miller-Meteor with emergency rescue equipment and was optionally available as a four stretcher municipal ambulance.

Another Divco-Wayne division was the Divco-Wayne Acceptance Corp. which was involved with financing and leasing Divco-Wayne vehicles. DWAC also enabled small dealers to keep new vehicles inventory by means of a company financed floorplan arrangement.

A portion of Miller-Meteor’s Piqua plant, designated the Divco-Wayne Piqua Division, was used to build prototypes for government and commercial contracts.

In 1962 Divco-Wayne purchased Vought Industries, the mobile homes division of LTV Inc. (Ling-Tempo-Vought), a Dallas, Texas-based transportation conglomerate. Further investment in the mobile home and travel trailer field followed, and by 1966, Divco-Wayne owned Esteven Industries Ltd. in Canada, Nene Valley Coachworks Ltd. in England and Kip Kampeerwagens in the Netherlands.

The firm’s mobile home and recreational vehicle holdings were merged into a new subsidiary, Divco-Wayne Industries, which was soon producing more than half of Divco-Wayne’s profits.

S.A. Bosuga, a Barcelona-based Spanish bus builder but some Wayne-bodied buses under license in the early 1960s. Built on Pegaso and Barreriros-AEC bus chassis, the short-lived vehicles were marketed as Bosuga-Wayne buses.

In 1963 Gleckel and Drimmer purchased Divco-Wayne’s Canadian distributor, Welles Corp. Ltd. and incorporated it as a new division of Divco-Wayne. Welles had been assembling Wayne Works’ bus bodies since 1948, and started producing their own multi-stop delivery trucks soon afterwards.

As Divco did not offer their milk truck bodies in knocked-down form, Welles simply acted as their distributor. Divco had earlier established a Canadian leasing operation called Divco Truck of Canada Ltd. in 1956, and prior to 1941 had operated a Canadian sales branch called Divco-Twin Truck Co.

Divco-Waynes’ professional car division was expanded in 1965 with the acquisition of Cotner-Bevington Coach Co., a small manufacturer of Oldsmobile-chassised professional cars based in Blytheville, Arkansas.

Divco-Wayne Corp., the parent company of Miller-Meteor, bought Cotner-Bevington in 1965 as a budget companion to their popular Cadillac coaches and from then on, Cotner-Bevington built only on Oldsmobile 98 chassis.

One of the first things done after Divco-Wayne purchased Cotner-Bevington was the assignment to Blytheville of Tom Caserta from the Miller-Meteor plant in Piqua.

Caserta told Bernie DeWinter IV that his job was to change Cotner-Bevington from a small conversion firm to a coachbuilder by standardizing things as much as possible and doing things like a larger coachbuilder would do them. Part of that job involved coming up with a base car specification, and switching to such a package for all cars built by the firm. Essentially, that entailed chassis specs, but it also included standard equipment features such as air-conditioning, radio, etc. Caserta's idea was to make a Cotner-Bevington a well optioned car in standard form, and as a result, Cotner-Bevingtons were the first professional cars to feature air conditioning as standard equipment on all models in 1967. Ironically, a few chassis were ordered without a/c, as there were always a few customers who would demand a car without this feature, but they were a rarity.

In the early 1960s, dealers handling Miller-Meteor, S&S, and Eureka, had to offer other makes of coaches at a lower price in order to be competitive with Superior dealers who could offer a wide spectrum of price range with their Pontiac and Cadillac chassised coaches. Cotner-Bevington suited that need nicely and was popular as a second line, as was National, and other smaller builders.  When it was purchased by Divco-Wayne, existing dealers were now offered both the Miller-Meteor and Cotner-Bevington products, although several elected to stick with other brands and carry only one of the two lines.

In December of 1966 Divco-Wayne announced that it was in negotiations to sell off its Divco Trucks Division. The winning bidder would turn out to be Transairco Inc, of Delaware, Ohio and in late 1967 production of Divco trucks was transferred to Transairco’s Delaware, Ohio plant.

In 1957, the Hughes-Keenan Corporation, a manufacturing concern organized by George W. Way in the late 1940's, became a division of the United States Air Conditioning Corporation, a firm formed in 1937 to manufacture air conditioners. In 1966, United States Air Conditioning changed its corporate name to Transairco, which was now controlled by Way. The firm’s Delaware, Ohio plant manufactured Skyworker overhead boom arms and hoped to offer complete units built using Divco chassis.

As early as 1964 Divco-Wayne started plans for the construction of a new plant, the problem was, they had selected a site in Florence, Kentucky. They had gone so far as to purchase an option on 107 acres in the Northern Kentucky Industrial Foundation Park, just south of Florence.

Not surprisingly, the Richmond community was reluctant to see the city’s largest employer leave, and a group of local businessmen, called the Committee of 100,  entered into talks with Divco-Wayne to try and get the firm to stay. Divco-Wayne expressed an interest in a 100-acre parcel located northwest of Richmond, but pointed out that property had already been purchased in Kentucky.

They agreed to remain, providing that the city fathers provide them with the 100 acre parcel, which was conveniently located near the intersection of Interstate 70 and US 35. A fund drive to raise $150,000 was initiated and the local UAW offered to contribute $300,000 of a severance pay fund that would have been paid out if the firm left town.

The Committee of 100 managed to raise the necessary funds by Divco-Wayne’s August 31, 1964 deadline, and construction commenced on the $3.5 million facility. Included in the new facility were a number of new sheet-metal presses, multiple assembly lines and a state of the art paint and rust-proofing facility – all under one roof.

The new 550,000 sq. ft plant was constructed at 1100 Industries Rd. on a sprawling campus that’s visible from the south side of Interstate 70, 3½ miles northwest of downtown Richmond. The facility opened in early 1967, and the firm’s old North E Street plant (between Ninth and Tenth) was put up for sale.

Since the 1920s many of Wayne’s buses had been shipped across the country and overseas in knocked-down (CKD) form for assembly by the local Wayne distributor. This practice was slowly phased out during the 1950s and 60s, and when the new plant came online the practice ceased entirely. Welles Corp., Wayne’s Canadian subsidiary would be the only authorized Wayne assembly facility.

Divco-Wayne introduced a Chevrolet Suburban-based Wayne-Sentinel ambulance starting in 1967. Early Sentinels featured a stock roof, but a raised roof soon became available when their production was moved to the Blytheville Cotner-Bevington plant.

Early Sentinels carried no builder's identity on their exteriors, but little details made their Miller-Meteor ancestry obvious, such as the ambulance identification decals in the quarter windows. Early '70's Cotner-Bevington ambulance literature showed Wayne Sentinels in production in the same photos as Cotner-Bevington ambulances.

In addition to the Sentinel, the Blytheville plant built the Chevrolet van-based Wayne Vanguard and Dodge van-based Wayne Medicruiser ambulances in the early 1970s.

At about the same time that negotiations were underway with Transairco, Drimmer & Glekel decided to get out of the transportation business. On June 19, 1967 the two partners and R.V. Hansberger, president of Boise-Cascade Corp. announced that Boise-Cascade was going to purchase the partner’s controlling 26% share of Divco-Wayne.

Drimmer & Glekel would receive approximately $11.9 million dollars of Boise-Cascade stock for their shares of Divco-Wayne. Hansberger also announced his intent to merge Divco-Wayne into Boise-Cascade through a $35.7 million exchange of the two firm’s common stock.

Divco-Wayne’s shareholder didn’t approve the first offer, but in October of that year, they accepted a second slightly more lucrative offer of $47.1 million. The merger was subsequently approved and on January 1, 1968, Divco-Wayne was absorbed by Boise-Cascade.

As Boise-Cascade had really only been interested in Divco-Wayne’s mobile home division, it came as not surprise when they sold off the firm’s transportation business in October of 1968 for $15 million. The purchaser was Indian Head Inc., a little-known manufacturer of textiles, glass bottles, metal products and auto parts.

Indian Head Inc. dated from 1953 when a former Textron executive named James Robinson purchased the Nashua Mfg Co. which owned the trade name Indian Head. Robinson renamed the firm Indian Head Mills and during the next 8 years he went on a buying spree, purchasing 11 additional companies. 

In 1962 Robinson began to divest himself of his textile firma and began to buy automotive-related businesses. In 1964, he purchased Metal Products & Auto Parts, in 1965, Detroit Gasket & Mfg. Co. and in 1966 Detroit Engine & Machine Co.

In 1966 Robinson reorganized the firm as Indian Head Inc., and in 1967 purchased MGM Brakes and the following glass manufacturers; Obear-Nester Glass, Northwestern Glass, Pierce Glass, Laurens Glass and Mason.

The Wayne purchase included Welles, Ltd, Miller-Meteor and Cotner-Bevington. The buying spree did not end there; in 1969 Robinson purchased Machinery Corp. and United Vintners. By 1970 Indian Head’s 22 subsidiaries employed 18,700 employees in 60 separate plants.

During the 1970s and 1980s a number of large bus line operators and contractors also served as Wayne Works distributors, Laidlaw in Canada and ARA Transportation being two of the largest operator/dealers. Laidlaw later entered the US transportation market in a big way and bought ARA in 1983.

The popularity of Suburban and van-based modular ambulances and the 1973 EMS Systems Act (see below) struck the death knell for a firm that specialized in building passenger-based emergency vehicles and Wayne closed the division at the end of the 1975 model year.

Wayne’s Sentinel and van ambulance production moved for a short time to a new facility west of Piqua, Ohio, then finally back to Piqua at Miller-Meteor’s Clark Avenue plant.

(The 1973 EMS Systems Act - passed in 1974, implemented four years later in 1978 - required that communities receiving federal funds for their programs had ambulances that met new federal specifications. Three chassis styles meet the criteria and are still in use today: Type I uses a small truck body with a modular compartment, Type II has a van body with a raised roof and Type III has van chassis with a modular compartment. Passenger-based vehicles were purposely excluded from legislation and the last American-made automobile-based ambulance was built in 1978. However a handful of automobile-based ambulances are still made in Europe using Mercedes E-Class and Volvo S-60/S-80 chassis.)

Under Indian Head, Wayne’s bus lineup remained basically unchanged until 1970 when the Wayne Papoose debuted. Built on a step van chassis, the awkward-looking vehicle was designed for use as an airport or courtesy bus, and was reminiscent of the Divco Dividend-based Bantam of 1959-1961. Like the Bantam, the Papoose was a failure, however it paved the way for the Wayne Busette, a far more attractive minibus that debuted in 1973.

Built on the most recent iteration of Chevrolet, GMC and Dodge’s light-duty forward control 1-ton van chassis (aka cutaway van), the Busette was a success. It molded the donor-vehicle’s cab and chassis to a 12- to 18-passenger bus body that rode over the 1-ton chassis dual real wheels. Initial versions used the passenger side cab door as an entrance, but a proper school bus doorway was soon made available. Available options included air-conditioning and an electro-hydraulic wheelchair lift.

The Busette had a low headroom of only 63” so in 1976, a higher headroom version called the Transette was added to Wayne’s cutaway van bus series. The higher headroom made the vehicle better suited to airport use and by the end of the decade Wayne Transette minibuses had become the primary rent-a-car shuttle bus in the country.

Despite the ready availability of cutaway van chassis, none of Wayne competitors would release their own minibuses until 1979 when the Thomas Mintour debuted.

For many years bus manufacturers knew that their bodies’ Achilles heel was their joints, or places where panels and body parts were fastened together, which tended to separate in rollovers. Although exterior guard rails - used since the 1930s – protected occupants in moderate side-collisions, they did little to protect them in a severe accident or rollover.

The Ward Body Co. of Conway, Arkansas had conducted a rollover test on one of their school bus bodies in 1967 and had noted that despite their increased use of rivets, the joints continued to separate under sever stress.

Wayne engineers decided to attack the problem in a novel manner, rather than strengthen the joints, which the believed would not result in any significant protection, they decided to look into strengthening the guardrails. In fact they decided to turn the entire bus body into one giant guardrail through the use of continuous longitudinal interior and exterior panels in the sides and roof of the body.

The design depended upon the use of long roll-formed steel panels that ran the entire length of the body. By reducing the number of joints, the risk of separation was significantly reduced and by using a sandwich of interconnected inner and outer panels, they could further strengthen the body shell, in effect giving it a wraparound guardrail.

Branded the Lifeguard, the new school bus design debuted in 1973 and would remain the firm’s greatest achievement since the debut of the Wayne all-steel body in 1930.

Additional benefits to the Lifeguard included lower weight, reduced quantities of fasteners and a consequent reduction in man-hours needed for assembly. The only downside was the initial investment in roll-form presses that were capable of producing the extra-long body panels.

It wasn’t until April 1, 1977 that the Federal Government would address the issue of school bus safety when the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for school buses took effect. And the government’s solution – increase use of adhesives – did not fully address the problem.

In 1975 Indian Head Inc. was purchased by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Group B.V., a Dutch holding company owned by Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921-2002). Thyssen-Bornemisza is mainly notable for his world-class art collection and his series of marriages to some of the world’s most beautiful women.

Under Thyssen-Bornemisza, Indian Head Inc. sold off much of its North American holdings.

Although Wayne incurred huge expenses when it re-tooled its Richmond facility in order to produce the Lifeguard body, they remained profitable into 1980 and were spared the Thyssen axe. However, the firm’s Cotner-Bevington plant in Blytheville, Arkansas was closed down in 1975 and it assets were sold to the Mid-Continent Conversion Co., a small ambulance builder located in Kansas City, Missouri.

Mid-Continent would later become Stratus Specialty Vehicles. Located at 12600 N. Woodlands Ave., Kansas City, the firm is now doing business as Mid-America Coach, specializing in mid-size bus, mobility and wheelchair van, shuttle, and small bus sales.

In a 1979 news article, Wayne’s president, Dwayne Shields, told the story of Wayne’s stillborn entry into the taxi-cab market:

“Rabbitransit bows: Wayne’s mini-taxi

“Richmond, Ind. – The little taxi that takes off like a scared rabbit the instant the light turns green is no hallucination. It’s a ‘Rabbitransit’ – an experimental mini-taxi developed by Wayne Corp. to help move people at lower cost.

“‘Rabbitransit’ is not an official trademark. It’s just a flip name sued at Wayne because of the car’s agility, the similarity to the term ‘rapid transit’ and the fact that the vehicle is a conversion of the Volkswagen Rabbit.

“The Rabbitransit has a 104½” wheelbase, 10 inches longer than the regular VW Rabbit. Wayne says it comfortably seats four passengers plus driver. Headroom in the passenger compartment is four inches higher and the interior is reportedly spacious with plenty of legroom.

“‘In enlarging the car for taxi service, we tried to keep in mind the size of the average American and the frequent need for transportation of luggage, groceries and the like,’ said Dwayne Shields, president of Wayne Corp.

“Structural strength of the VW has been beefed up with additional strainers and bows. Yet, even with the added steel structures, the vehicle weighs only 190 pounds than the original.

“Wayne kept the weight down by making a number of parts changes using lightweight vacuumed-formed plastic techniques.

“Wayne says gas consumption has been very close to that of the VW Rabbit which is 41 mpg, according to the EPA rating for the 1979 five-speed, fuel-injected diesel vehicle.

“The idea for the Rabbitransit came to Shields late in 1978 when he read about a taxi operator who had purchased a number of different types of small cars for his fleet. The article pointed that the largest expense incurred by a taxi company is daily cost of operation.

“The VW Rabbit was selected because its front-wheel drive made it maneuverable in traffic. The forthcoming diesel engine that would increase fuel economy was another big plus.

“But by the time the two prototype mini-taxis were built, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards required that such vehicles undergo expensive testing procedures.

“Also to make mini-taxis viable from the standpoint of cost, it became evident to Wayne officials that they should be built from the ground up, rather than a modification of a completed vehicle.

“And VW officials indicated it would be some time before they would be in a position to supply components for this type of assembly.

“What then will happen to the mini-taxi?

“Shields said the present prototypes will probably find their way into the archives of automotive history. But Wayne is continuing to study taxicab use in the U.S. to determine whether the mini-taxi concept can open up new markets for the corporation.

“Wayne Corp. is part of Indian Head, accompany diversified in metal and automotive products, pumping systems, construction products, information technology and containers.”

The 1973 EMS Systems Act had virtually eliminated all passenger car-based ambulance production by 1977 and Miller-Meteor only built 21 ambulances during the year. Only four were built in 1978 and by 1979 Miller-Meteor was reduced to a single line of professional vehicles - hearses. With sales down and prospects dim, The company announced the end of operations on November 1, 1979 and on December 13, 1979 the plant was closed down. There would be no 1980 Miller-Meteor products.

The company laid-off 252 employees and terminated the contracts of their 34 North American distributors.

The two legendary 1983-1984 Miller-Meteor three-door Eldorado hearses were the brainchild of Spencerville, Ohio's Jack Hardesty, the owner of a small funeral home supply company called the Barron Corp. Hardesty was also Lima, Ohio's first sports and imported car dealer and went on to found the Lima Coach Co, a hearse conversion company that specialized in Dodge Caravans.

When Miller-Meteor went out of business in 1979, Barron Corp. purchased the trade name of the once-famous coachbuilder. He also owned the local Ziebart franchise, and most of the work on the second Eldorado was done in the large Ziebart shop. Bud Bayliff assisted Hardesty in building and engineering the first 1983 Eldorado prototype which was constructed at Bayliff's Lima, Ohio body shop.

In late 1984 Hardesty sold the rights to the Miller-Meteor trade name along with the tooling for the Eldorado coaches - which also happened to fit Cadillac's new 1985 front-wheel-drive DeVilles - and the second 1984 Eldorado prototype to Collins Industries of Hutchinson, Kansas. Hardesty's front drive tooling was the basis for the 1985 Collins-built Miller-Meteor-Cadillac front drive coaches which were produced in Hutchinson through 1992.

The Heritage Coach Co. of Skippack, Pennsylvania, a division of Lankford Buick Pontiac GMC Inc. of Norristown, PA, purchased the Eureka tooling and trade name from the firm's receivers. Within the year Mark Lankford and Bob Williams had established a new firm called CCE Inc. to manufacture Eureka-badged funeral coaches and limousines in a new plant in Norwalk, Ohio.  In 1993 the firm, now known as  Eureka Coach, CCE Inc., purchased another classic funeral coach producer - Miller-Meteor - from Collins Industries of Hutchinson, Kansas.

Located at 600 Industrial Parkway in Norwalk, Ohio, CCE Inc. was a union (UAW) shop that employed from 80 to 120 employees and enjoyed a QVM ‘‘Qualified Vehicle Modifier’’ rating from Ford Motor Company as well as Cadillac's ‘‘Master Coach Builder’’ certification.

In 1999, CCE Inc. sold the combined Eureka and Miller-Meteor operation and trade-names to the nation's largest producer of funeral vehicles - Accubuilt Inc. who moved it to their new (in 1995) 175,000-square-foot facility in Lima, Ohio.

In August 2001, Accubuilt purchased the assets of Vartanian Industries, a small shuttle and wheelchair van converter and moved their operations to the Lima, plant.

Today, 220 skilled Accubuilt employees manufacture $45.90 Million Dollars worth of quality vans and professional vehicles for five distinct brand names: Vartanian, Eureka Coach, Miller-Meteor, S&S (Sayers & Scovill) and Superior.

The entire bus industry experienced a notable decrease in sales as the baby boomers completed their educations and in 1979-1980 a number of Wayne’s competitors were sold, reorganized or liquidated. Ward Bus was the first to go and in 1980 the Superior Coach division of Sheller Globe.

Wayne started experiencing losses in 1981 and by 1983, the losses were reportedly in the millions and the firm warned the UAW and its distributors that the firm was up for sale. The Union made a number of concessions to help keep the firm in business, and in 1985 Wayne Corp. and its Canadian subsidiary, Welles Corp. Ltd. were sold to Richmond Transportation Corp.

Richmond Transportation was formed in late 1984 by California venture capitalist Jack M. Dekruif and a group of current Wayne executives headed by Terry G. Whitesell. The firm remained solvent into 1986 and its Chaperone line of cutaway buses did well in the marketplace against tough competition.

While the firm was owned by Thyssen, it had been privately held and in the fall of 1986 Dekruif and Whitesell had hoped to take the firm public. However the stock market crash of October 1986 forced the cancellation of its IPO.

The Canadian transportation giant, Laidlaw, had been Wayne’s largest customer for a number of years, but in 1986 they split their new bus orders between Wayne and the reorganized Ward Bus of Conway, Arkansas which was now doing business as AmTran Corp. (American Transportation Corp.).

During the 1960s and early 1970s Wayne produced a rear-engined transit-style bus for the US Government on a military contract which ended in 1973. Wells Corp. also developed a rear-engined transit prototype, but it was never placed into production.

A May 1987 fire destroyed the Drouillard Rd. plant of Welles Corp. in Windsor, Ontario. With the cooperation of the city of Windsor, Welles was able to stay in business, and rebuilt the factory on the former Sheller-Globe CAW Mfg. facility located on Marentette St.

In 1988 Wayne introduced an all-new transit (flat face) bus called the Lifestar. Unlike many transit-style buses, the Lifestar was designed as a front engined bus and was built for use on a General Motor’s new purpose-built S-7 forward control chassis. Like the Lifeguard, it included Wayne’s continuous longitudinal interior and exterior side and roof panels.

The Lifestar featured a standard length flat-face bus body mounted on a short-wheelbase chassis. A small turning radius enabled it to easily navigate crowded city streets, however it also gave the vehicle a harsher ride than a comparable long-wheelbase bus.

The S-7 chassis had been designed for the Lifestar and General Motors hoped that other bus manufacturers would adopt it. They didn’t, and after two years of limited manufacture, GM discontinued the unprofitable chassis in 1989.

One resourceful Wayne bus dealer - Bus & Bodies Inc. of Plaistow, New Hampshire – liked the Lifestar so much that he located a suitable Korean-built short-wheelbase chassis that would fit, and imported then under the Asia-Smith brand. Asia for its continent of origin and Smith for Bus & Bodies’ owner, Milton H. Smith.

Unfortunately the Asia-Smith chassis was not well received and Wayne contracted with Navistar to supply them with a replacement, a forward control version of their popular International 3800 bus chassis, which was called the 3900 FC.

Leftover Asia-Smith chassis were sold to New Bus Inc., a small Chickasha, Oklahoma bus manufacturer that took over the bus manufacturing facility of Carl-Built, Inc., which had been started by Carl Greene Jr., a Superior Coach bus dealer. A handful of New Bus / Asia-Smith forward control buses were built between 1989 and 1990.

Wayne’s conventional-chassised Lifeguard buses continued to struggle in the decreasing school bus market and in April of 1990, Richmond Transportation announced that the Welles Corp. assembly plant in Windsor would close for good in June of that year.

At about the same time Wayne sold the rights and tooling for their Busette cutaway buses to Mid-Bus, a small bus manufacturer headquartered in Lima, Ohio. Mid-Bus was formed by former employees of the Superior Coach Co. in 1981 and relocated to Bluffton, Ohio in 1995. It was purchased by the Collins Bus Corp. of South Hutchinson, Kansas in 1998, and the Bluffton facility was closed in 2007 and operations were consolidated with those of its parent company in Kansas.

In late 1989 Navistar had introduced a chassis which could be used with the Lifestar body and Wayne Lifestar production on the International 3900 FC chassis commenced in 1990. Other firm’s purchased the International forward control chassis, and of particular importance was its adoption by AmTrans, formerly Ward Body Co.

AmTrans developed a both a front- and rear-engined bus using the 3900 FC chassis, and Navistar like it so much that they purchased a 1/3 interest in the firm (American Transportation) in early 1991.

The purchase would prove to be the proverbial “final nail in the coffin” for Wayne. Navistar, their chief supplier had just purchased AmTrans, their main competitor. Although Navistar continued to supply Wayne with chassis, the firm’s future looked bleak, and industry insiders were more succinct, predicting that Wayne would be out of business in a matter of months.

The insiders were correct and in August of 1992, Richmond Transportation Corp., - Wayne’s owner – filed for bankruptcy protection. In February 1993 a military contractor named BMY Wheeled Vehicles purchased most of the firm’s tangible assets for $2.1 million.

BMY, a subsidiary of the Harsco Corp., transferred all bus building operations to its Marysville, Ohio plant at 13311 Industrial Parkway where it continued to manufacture small numbers of Lifeguards and Lifestars under the Wayne Wheeled Vehicle brand. Various chassis were utilized and a number of Lifestars were built using CCC forward control chassis between 1992 and 1995.

Unfortunately Harsco’s BMY-Wheeled Vehicles Division, which was for many years a major manufacturer of 2½-ton trucks for the US Army, did not see the contract renewed and Harsco pulled the plug their Marysville operations in 1995, and along with it Wayne Wheeled Vehicles.

In 1995 Carpenter Industries closed down their antiquated Mitchell, Indiana factory and moved into the former 550,000 sq. ft. Wayne plant in Richmond where they produced school buses and walk-in vans into 2000 when the plant was shut down. In 2005 a revitalization plan was proposed by a group of Richmond investors who purchased the facility in the hopes of turning it into a mixed-use business park.

© 2004 Mark Theobald - Coachbuilt.com, with special thanks to Bernie deWinter IV.

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For more information please read:

Andrew White Young - History of Wayne County, Indiana (pub 1872) 

History of Wayne County, Indiana; Volume II, (pub1884) 

Biographical History of Fayette, Franklin, Union and Wayne Counties, Indiana (pub 1899) 

Henry Clay Fox - Memoirs of Wayne County and the city of Richmond, Indiana; (pub 1912) 

Francis M. Trissal – Public Men of Indiana (pub 1922) 

1884-85 Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture (pub 1885) 

Herb Colling with Carl Morgan - Pioneering the Auto Age (pub 1993) 

Dodge WC54 Ambulance - Classic Military Vehicle Magazine, September 2001 issue (UK) 

Robert R. Ebert & John S. Rienzo Jr. – DIVCO: A History of the Truck and Company 

Special Interest Autos #176, March-April 2000 issue 

Minimum Standards for School Buses, National Commission on Safety Education, National Education Association (pub 1949) 

Roy Hurst - Miller-Meteor History - Vintage Vehicles of Canada - Vol. 3 No. 4, Jan-Feb, 1982 

Tony Karsnia - The Standard By Which All Others Are Measured… A History of the Miller-Meteor Criterion Ambulance 

Walt McCall - Return To Piqua: The Miller-Meteor Reunion - The Professional Car - Issue #113, Third Quarter 2004 

Ron Van Gelderen & Matt Larson - LaSalle: Cadillac's Companion Car 

Walter M.P. McCall - 80 Years of Cadillac LaSalle 

SIA #172, July/August 1999 pp55

The Professional Car - Issue #44 Summer 1987

The Professional Car, Issue #64, Second Quarter 1992

The Professional Car - Issue #99 First Quarter 2001

The Professional Car (Quarterly Journal of the Professional car Society)

Gregg D. Merksamer - Professional Cars: Ambulances, Funeral Cars and Flower Cars

Thomas A. McPherson - American Funeral Cars & Ambulances Since 1900

Carriage Museum of America - Horse-Drawn Funeral Vehicles: 19th Century Funerals

Carriage Museum of America -  Horse Drawn - Military, Civilian, Veterinary - Ambulances

Gunter-Michael Koch - Bestattungswagen im Wandel der Zeit

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Ambulances 1900-1979: Photo Archive

Walt McCall & Tom McPherson - Classic American Funeral Vehicles 1900-1980 Photo Archive

Walter M. P. McCall - The American Ambulance 1900-2002

Walter M.P. McCall - American Funeral Vehicles 1883-2003

Michael L. Bromley & Tom Mazza - Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine

Richard J. Conjalka - Classic American Limousines: 1955 Through 2000 Photo Archive

Richard J. Conjalka - Stretch Limousines 1928-2001 Photo Archive

Thomas A. McPherson - Eureka: The Eureka Company : a complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Superior: The complete history

Thomas A. McPherson - Flxible: The Complete History

Thomas A. McPherson - Miller-Meteor: The Complete History

Ed Strauss & Karen Strauss - The Bus World Encyclopedia of Buses

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Donald F. Wood - American Buses

Denis Miller - The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trucks and Buses

Susan Meikle Mandell - A Historical Survey of Transit Buses in the United States

David Jacobs - American Buses, Greyhound, Trailways and Urban Transportation

William A. Luke & Linda L. Metler - Highway Buses of the 20th Century: A Photo Gallery 

William A. Luke & Brian Grams - Buses of Motorcoach Industries 1932-2000 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Greyhound Buses 1914-2000 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Prevost Buses 1924-2002 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Flxible Intercity Buses 1924-1970 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Buses of ACF Photo Archive (including ACF-Brill & CCF-Brill)

William A. Luke - Trailways Buses 1936-2001 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Fageol & Twin Coach Buses 1922-1956 Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Yellow Coach Buses 1923 Through 1943: Photo Archive

William A. Luke - Trolley Buses: 1913 Through 2001 Photo Archive

Harvey Eckart - Mack Buses: 1900 Through 1960 Photo Archive

Brian Grams & Andrew Gold - GM Intercity Coaches 1944-1980 Photo Archive

Robert R. Ebert  - Flxible: A History of the Bus and the Company

John McKane - Flxible Transit Buses: 1953 Through 1995 Photo Archive

Bill Vossler - Cars, Trucks and Buses Made by Tractor Companies

Lyndon W Rowe - Municipal buses of the 1960s

Edward S. Kaminsky - American Car & Foundry Company 1899-1999

Dylan Frautschi - Greyhound in Postcards: Buses, Depots and Post Houses

Beverly Rae Kimes - The Classic Car

Beverly Rae Kimes - The Classic Era

Beverly Rae Kimes - Packard: A History of the Motorcar and Company

Beverly Rae Kimes & Henry Austin Clark Jr. - Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942

Richard Burns Carson - The Olympian Cars

Raymond A. Katzell - The Splendid Stutz

Marc Ralston - Pierce Arrow

Brooks T. Brierley - There Is No Mistaking a Pierce Arrow

Brooks T. Brierley - Auburn, Reo, Franklin and Pierce-Arrow Versus Cadillac, Chrysler, Lincoln and Packard

Brooks T. Brierley - Magic Motors 1930

Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding

John Gunnell - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975

James M. Flammang & Ron Kowalke - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999

Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Michael Lamm and Dave Holls - A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design

Thomas E. Bonsall - The Lincoln Motorcar: Sixty Years of Excellence

Fred Roe - Duesenberg: The Pursuit of Perfection

Arthur W. Soutter - The American Rolls-Royce

John Webb De Campi - Rolls-Royce in America

Hugo Pfau - The Custom Body Era

Hugo Pfau - The Coachbult Packard

Griffith Borgeson - Cord: His Empire His Motor Cars

Don Butler - Auburn Cord Duesenberg

George H. Dammann - 90 Years of Ford

George H. Dammann & James K. Wagner - The Cars of Lincoln-Mercury

Thomas A. MacPherson - The Dodge Story

F. Donald Butler - Plymouth-Desoto Story

Fred Crismon - International Trucks

George H. Dammann - Seventy Years of Chrysler

Walter M.P. McCall - 80 Years of Cadillac LaSalle

Maurice D. Hendry - Cadillac, Standard of the World: The complete seventy-year history

George H. Dammann & James A. Wren - Packard

Dennis Casteele - The Cars of Oldsmobile

Terry B. Dunham & Lawrence R. Gustin - Buick: A Complete History

George H. Dammann - Seventy Years of Buick

George H. Dammann - 75 Years of Chevrolet

John Gunnell - Seventy-Five Years of Pontiac-Oakland

Tad Burness - American Truck Spotter's Guide, 1920-1970

Tad Burness - American Truck & Bus Spotter's Guide, 1920-1985

Robert M Roll - American trucking: A seventy-five year odyssey

David Jacobs - American Trucks: A photographic essay of American Trucks and Trucking

David Jacobs - American Trucks: More Colour Photographs of Truck & Trucking

John Gunnell - American Work Trucks: A Pictorial History of Commercial Trucks 1900-1994

George W. Green - Special-Use Vehicles: An Illustrated History of Unconventional Cars and Trucks

Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship

Ronald G. Adams - 100 Years of Semi Trucks

Stan Holtzman - Big Rigs: The Complete History of the American Semi Truck

Stan Holtzman & Jeremy Harris Lipschultz - Classic American Semi Trucks

Stan Holtzman - Semi Truck Color History

Donald F. Wood - American Beer Trucks

Donald F. Wood - Beverage Trucks: Photo Archive

Donald F. Wood - Commercial Trucks

Donald F. Wood - Delivery Trucks

Donald F. Wood - Dump Trucks

Donald F. Wood - Gas & Oil Trucks

Donald F. Wood - Logging Trucks 1915 Through 1970: Photo Archive

Donald F. Wood - New Car Carriers 1910-1998 Photo Album

Donald F. Wood - RVs & Campers 1900-2000: An Illustrated History

Donald F. Wood - Wreckers and Tow Trucks

Gini Rice - Relics of the Road

Gini Rice - Relics of the Road - Impressive International Trucks 1907-1947

Gini Rice - Relics of the Road - Keen Kenworth Trucks - 1915-1955