At the turn of the 20th century, Frank Martz Sr. operated a coal company store in Avondale. His customers were mostly coal miners and their families who had to walk several miles from their homes in Plymouth and Nanticoke to purchase their supplies.To ease their burden, Martz, in 1908, began to transport patrons in a horse-drawn cart. It was good business. So popular, in fact, that four years later, in 1912, Martz bought and supervised the construction of a White 1912 bus to bring customers to his store. It was a wooden-bodied vehicle with just enough space to accommodate a dozen people. Under the name "White Transit Company," Martz expanded his network of local routes throughout the region. By 1922, the company was operating 39 buses in Wilkes-Barre and charging a nickel per ride.
Today, "White Transit" is known as "Martz Trailways," a coast-to-coast bus service, that employs more than 400 people, operates 250 coaches nationwide and is highly respected in the transportation industry.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Greyhound Bus Lines had grown so quickly that the Interstate Commerce Commission encouraged smaller independent operators to form an alternate system. On Feb. 5, 1936, Frank Martz Sr. responded to the request by joining his coach company with four others - Burlington Transportation Company, Santa Fe Trails Transportation Company,
Missouri-Pacific Stages, Safeway Lines Inc. - to establish a nationwide bus line. Known as the "National Trailways Bus System," the alliance set schedules and fares for connecting service coast to coast and became a formidable competitor to Greyhound lines. Unlike Greyhound, which had centralized ownership, the NTBS remained an association of separate companies.
The Frank Martz Coach Company was a major part of the NTBS's success. Prior to joining the organization, Martz owned 150 buses and was operating inter-city routes between Wilkes-Barre and New York City-Philadelphia-Albany, NY-Syracuse, NY-Buffalo-Cleveland, OH-Detroit and Chicago, IL, in addition to its extensive network of local routes.
Martz also experimented with airline transportation between New York-Elmira-Buffalo beginning in 1926, though the service was discontinued during the Great Depression as economic times worsened in the United States.
Upon the death of Frank Martz Sr. in 1936, the company was taken over by his
son, Frank Jr., who continued to grow his father's legacy.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Martz became one of the five original NTBS members to consolidate into a new company, Continental Trailways, which eventually operated the majority of Trailways routes. When Frank Martz Jr. died in 1964, Frank M.
Henry, grandson of the founder, took control of the company. He continued the controlled growth
of the business by making it, along with the other NTBS members, a subsidiary of Holiday Inn in 1968. The partnership lasted until 1979, when Trailways was sold to private investor Henry Lea Hillman Sr. of Pittsburgh. In 1974, Martz also decided to sell its local service line to the Luzerne County Transportation Authority in order to concentrate on nationwide service.
Today, Martz Trailways is owned and operated by the fourth generation of the Martz family. It boasts coach companies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Washington, D.C. In addition to its regular route service, tours and charters, Martz operates a travel agency in Wilkes-Barre for air and cruise services. It also continues to display at local parades and special occasions the white, wooden-body bus Frank Martz Sr., had custom-made in 1912 to serve his customers, a poignant testimony to an enduring legacy of transportation.
William Kashatus teaches history at Luzerne County Community College. He can be contacted at Bkashatus@luzerne.edu.