Caption: Three drivers for Consolidated Service Car Co. circle St. Louis City Hall on Nov. 30, 1965, the last day of regular operations. Service cars were automobiles that operated along set routes and schedules, and competed with buses and streetcars. In the years after World War II, many service-car operators went out of business. Bus companies disliked them because of their largely unregulated competition. Cabbies also wanted them off the streets. When the Bi-State Transit Authority was created in 1963 as the regional bus system, its executives lobbied hard to be rid of service cars. By November 1965, when Consolidated had dwindled to three routes in north St. Louis, company president Anthony F. Sansone accepted Bi-State's offer of $625,000 to cease operations. But most Consolidated drivers were owner-operators, and many of them worked with the Committee of Racial Equality (CORE) to provide unlicensed service along their routes. Many black commuters honored the drivers' call to boycott of Bi-State and rode the service cars. Because they didn't have city operating permits, the service-car drivers asked riders for "donations." CORE ended the boycott in March 1966. By then, Bi-State had hired about 35 former Consolidated drivers. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)
Album ID: 1367417
Photo ID: 39002181
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