W.L. Brown, and his sons Hansel and Wyman, started Brown Motor Coaches Co. in the early 1930’s transporting Alabama College students to and from the Calera passenger train depot to catch the L&N railroad’s busy north/south trains through central Alabama. They also operated a bus for the school with “Alabama College” painted on the side that took groups, such as the glee club, to off-campus performances and events. The name of the company was changed to Alabama Coaches Co. about the time the Alabama Public Service Commission authorized a franchise for the company to begin operating its first public bus route between Tuscaloosa and Sylacauga in 1935.
The bus line’s base of operations was the large corner lot on the southeast corner of Middle and Valley Streets where there was a small repair garage and parking for idle vehicles. The Browns leased the property from “Dr.” P.C. Wilson, druggist and owner of Wilson’s Drug Co. Dr. Wilson constructed a building facing Middle Street to serve as a terminal and offices for the company in 1939, next door to the Montevallo Café building. That same year the company was granted permission to operate a route between Montevallo and Birmingham that included Bessemer. Prior to getting the new station, the bus company had a ticket office inside Wilson’s drug store and passengers boarded the bus on the street.
By the mid-1930’s, the automobile had become a common sight on city streets and rural dirt roads, but many Alabamians still did not own cars, so the opportunity to travel inexpensively by bus to the smaller communities was a much welcomed convenience. As Alabama Coaches Co. buses made their presence known outside their headquarters in Montevallo, business boomed and they were granted even more routes to cities such as Gadsden and Selma. Group charters became a lucrative source of additional revenue and during World War II, twice-daily buses hauled workers from Montevallo to and from the Ordnance Works in Childersburg, which the U.S. government had opened there as part of the war effort.
The Alabama Coaches Co. continued to expand and prosper into the 1940’s and was able to build their own brand-new state-of-the-art bus terminal on Main Street, that included a restaurant, which they moved into in 1946.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of Montevallo Historical Society, for this information!