A History of Davis Cartage Co.
The Early Years - 1941 through 1970
By: William John Hartle
Another authority acquired during this period was for carrying fertilizer for Farm Bureau Service from Hanger, Michigan to various Michigan points. This became more important later on when the company built its warehouse where it could store this material and transfer it to other Michigan points.
As can be seen the Davis Cartage Company as a limited common carrier handled a great variety of products. To handle these products a number of different tractors and semi vans were needed. This included flat racks for heavy equipment, tankers for the handling of liquids and large trailers for handling bulk loads. With this variety of equipment to utilize Davis Cartage Company continued to expand in the 1950's.
The development of the cement permits required that the Davis Cartage Company develop a terminal near the huge Huron Portland Cement Company in Alpena, Michigan. Pursuing this need land was bought in Alpena in March, 1953. With this purchase a small terminal was developed to service the trucks used in the Alpena area to haul cement in the northern part of the lower peninsula.
At this time there was a need to acquire many pieces of equipment and to lease this equipment to other companies put the Davis Cartage Company in great jeopardy in case there was an accident by one of the drivers of the companies leasing the equipment. If this happened the company could possibly lose all it's equipment and assets. This being the case it was felt by Maurice R. Davis and Mr. Kib F. Clardy of the Public Service Commission that the operating end of the business should be separated from the ownership of equipment. Thus a new Michigan company, the Davis Equipment Company, was born which would own the equipment and lease it to the Davis Cartage Company. This would protect the company from a large financial setback in case of a suit involving one of its leased trucks.
Davis Cartage Company was growing and by 1955 it had over 60 trucks and 130 pieces of equipment. In this year the gross was $600,000.00. This was rather phenomenal growth period when you consider the company had only been in operation for 14 years.
The growth of the business was not spectacular from 1955 to 1960. For although the gross was up to about $700,000.00 by 1960, the profit margin was down and there was a definite squeeze on the company. What was the reason for this? By 1960 Davis Cartage Company had over 70 trucks and 140 pieces of equipment. This necessitated having a good many men on the job. Besides this the cost of running the terminal at Alpena was much too high.
It was then decided that the cement business with its necessary high need of equipment and correspondingly high maintenance cost was the major problem. It was then decided by the Davis Cartage Company to see if the equipment and the cement authorizations could be sold. This was looked into and negotiations were started with the Huron Portland Cement Company of Alpena, Michigan. These negotiations were completed on September 12, 1961 in Saginaw, Michigan. Davis Equipment Company sold 107 pieces of equipment to Huron Portland Cement Company for $300,000.00. By selling this equipment the firm was out of the cement business except for the cement permits which it still retained.
Some of these permits would be sold to Etna Cement Company of Bay City, Michigan in 1964 and some to N and K Leasing Company in Carrollton, Michigan in 1964. Then the Davis Cartage Company would be out of the cement business for good. It had been profitable in the beginning but the overhead had been too much to handle and there were other ways to expand and participate in the movement of goods in Michigan.
There being no need for the leasing of equipment it was decided to have the Davis Cartage Company take over the Davis Equipment Company and this merger took place on August 7, 1963 at a meeting of the Board of Directors of both companies.
