Yellow Freight lives on in this beautiful restoration of a Mack truck and a Fruehauf Trailer

1939 Mack BM and 1937 Fruehauf Trailer
In the collection of The Keystone Museum
 
The Keystone museum and Keith Jones, acquired this restored truck and trailer from the Overland, Kansas headquarters, when YRC was renovating their offices.  An exterior wall needed to be removed to permit the trailers to be moved.
 
In 1929, A.J. Harrell determined that the color of the Swamp Holly Orange would be most visible from the greatest distance. Swamp Holly Orange became the color used on all company tractors.
 
In 1906, Grover Cleveland “Cleve” Harrell (1884-1942) started what was to become the Yellow Cab Company with a horse-drawn hack and a team of horses in Oklahoma City. After a year, he bought a Model T Ford. In 1918, Harrell painted one of his cars yellow. Although ridiculed by other cab drivers, he was hauling more passengers than anyone else, so he painted all his cars yellow and business boomed. Harrell trademarked the name Yellow Cab in Oklahoma. Later, John Hertz copied the Yellow Cab in Chicago and obtained the national trademark for the use of the name.
 
When oil was discovered in the Oklahoma City area, mules were needed for work in digging slush pits, so the Harrell brothers bought mules and, in 1929, established the Yellow Transit Freight Lines to serve small manufacturers for whom freight was slow and express rates were prohibitive.
 
About this time, the Harrell brothers dissolved the partnership. A.J. took control of the freight lines, which he operated for many years. The company remained small until 1952, when an ownership group led by George E. Powell Sr. bought the freight company. During this time, Yellow helped pioneer the concept of consolidating small freight shipments into trailer loads, an idea pioneered by the Fruehauf Trailer Company.  Fruehauf’s age old sales pitch involved companies using, what Fruehauf called, “the shuttle system.”  They calculated great cost savings to trailer customers when multiple trailers were employed in haulage simultaneously. 
 
In December 2003 Yellow Corp. acquired Roadway Corp. for $1.05 billion, forming Yellow Roadway Corporation or YRC.

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