Kenosha Area Transit

History

Urban public transit service has been available in the City of Kenosha since February 3, 1903, when streetcar operations commenced over the Kenosha Electric Railway using two Birney cars, later supplemented by motor buses. There were several owners of the system over the decades. On February 14, 1932, the service was supplanted by a system of twenty-two electric trolley-buses, also called trackless trolleys; 10 St. Louis Car Company coaches (Job 1555); and 12 Yellow Coach Model MTA 701 coaches. At that point, the Wisconsin Gas & Electric Company, the operators at the time, pioneered a color-coded route designation system, which is believed to be the first in the world.

Ford V8 gasoline transit buses were introduced to supplement increased wartime-production service during World War II.

On September 5, 1942, the system came under the ownership of Kenosha Motor Coach Lines and later Kenosha Motor Coach Company, which had been incorporated on June 27, 1942. By 1948, the company began purchasing new diesel coaches, which finally supplanted all trolley-bus operations in March 1952.

The president of Kenosha Motor Coach Lines was Henry P. Bruner (November 16, 1900 - November 30, 1993). Bruner had been a transportation consultant in Indiana, and with personal assets of approximately $16,000 managed to acquire southeastern Wisconsin transit properties valued at $1,242,000. He acquired the Racine city system in 1939 from The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Transport, known as Racine Motor Coach Lines.

On December 27, 1943, KMCL under Bruner purchased the ten and one-half mile Kenosha-Racine segment of the Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha rapid transit trackage from Milwaukee's Transport Company for $100,000, with a down payment of $22,500 and an annual payment of $7,750 plus an annual right-of-way rental of $6,500. (The book value of the line was $952,388.)