A Guide to the John Kight Transportation Collection, 1878-1990

Biographical Note

John Kellogg Kight was the company historian and custodian of the records of VIA Metropolitan Transit (VIA). Beginning in 1926, he worked in the maintenance shop for the various successive transportation companies in San Antonio. He retired from the San Antonio Transit System in 1974 but maintained an active interest in San Antonio's transportation history until his death in June 1989. During his career and even after his retirement, Kight wrote extensively on transportation history in company publications. The records of VIA, kept by Kight, include material from predecessor transportation companies dating back to the late 19th century; however, most date from 1920-1977. Using his skill as a photographer, Kight also made a detailed visual record of San Antonio's public transportation system in the 20th century.

VIA began operating one hundred years after mass transportation in San Antonio began with cars being pulled along rails by mules in 1878. With a population of 12,256, San Antonio was then the largest city in Texas. Five different companies began operating electric streetcar service in the 1890s. The lack of standardization and cooperation between the companies caused problems for people who needed to use more than one line. By 1900, the five companies had been consolidated into the San Antonio Traction Company, a single company responsible for all mass transportation in San Antonio. Between 1900 and when VIA began operating in March 1978, mass transportation in San Antonio was run by a succession of separate companies. A brief chronology of the different transit companies in San Antonio is listed after this note. Mass transportation in San Antonio became publicly owned in 1959.

VIA, the first regional transit authority in the nation, and its predecessor companies made many milestones in the history of mass transportation. As advances in technology made improvements possible, San Antonio would be among the first places where innovations were tried. For example, bus service started in 1917 when a converted truck was used to transport servicemen between Fort Sam Houston and downtown. Buses became more and more common in San Antonio throughout the 1920's. Touring buses for sightseers began in 1930. San Antonio was the largest city in the United States to completely convert from streetcars to buses in 1933. Fifty years later rubber tired reproductions of streetcars were put into service on downtown streets by VIA. San Antonio was also the first city in the world to offer air conditioned bus service in 1947. In addition, the maintenance department of the San Antonio Transit System redesigned the air conditioners of the Diesel powered "Dreamliner" buses that arrived in 1960. General Motors adopted the San Antonio design for all Dreamliners. San Antonio was also one of the first cities to use an automatic vehicle monitoring system to pinpoint the location of buses on routes.

Mr. Kight also kept the papers of F. Norman "Pinky" Hill. Mr. Hill was the General Manager of the San Antonio Transit System from 1959 to 1977 and an officer of the American Transit Association (ATA) serving as president in 1967-1968. Prior to his arrival in San Antonio, Mr. Hill held positions with the St. Joseph [Missouri] Railway, Light, Heat and Power Company (1942-1945), National City Lines in St. Louis (1945-1948) and the Baltimore Transit Company (1948-1951). He was also president of the Capitol Transit Company (1951-1955) and Red Arrow Freight Lines (1955-1959) both in Little Rock, Arkansas.

San Antonio Public Transportation Timeline

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Scope and Content Note

The Kight Transportation Collection consists of materials dating from 1878 to 1990, which document the history of mass transportation in San Antonio. The collection is divided into three series of records representing the different types of material and the origins of that material. The series are VIA Records, Transportation, and Special Formats.

The VIA Records series contains the Records of VIA Metropolitan Transit (VIA) and is composed of ten subseries. It documents local transportation issues in San Antonio and Bexar County. The documents reveal much of the history of transportation in San Antonio and how a large company and agency functioned in San Antonio in the 20th century.

The day to day operations and the flow of communication in the transportation companies are well documented in the correspondence, the Board of Trustees, and the office files subseries. These records show many of the issues with which the transportation companies had to be concerned and how those concerns changed over time.

The ties that the transportation companies had with the San Antonio community are recorded in the local associations subseries as well as the legal and contracts subseries. These documents help to illustrate how various groups in the area viewed mass transportation. The ties that the transportation companies in San Antonio had with transportation companies in other cities is well documented, as are the ties with the manufacturers of buses.

The transportation companies also worked hard to establish a positive image in San Antonio. The VIA publications subseries contains material designed to promote the companies, both to their employees and the San Antonio community. The public image of the transportation companies in San Antonio is also documented in clippings and awards.

The Transportation series focuses on transportation issues that concern more than San Antonio and Bexar County. A large number of national transportation periodicals and information about professional associations provide insight into national and international transportation issues. The papers of F. Norman Hill are also in this series.

F. Norman Hill's papers document his leadership role in the American Transit Association (ATA), making his papers a resource to study how the leaders of the transportation industry reacted to the challenges of the 1960s. A number of regional and national groups concern themselves with mass transportation. Some of these groups are documented in transportation associations. The American Transit Association, the largest professional association of the transit industry, is further documented in American Transit Association meetings and publications. VIA and its predecessors kept a large reference library of national transportation publications providing another avenue in which local authorities could consult national experience and expertise.

The Special Formats series contains non-textual records and is divided into three subseries. This arrangement of photographs, negatives and other formats provide a detailed visual record of the history of mass transportation in San Antonio spanning over a century. The growth of the city and the bus system can be examined using this material.

Journals and serial publications have been separated from the collection and are maintained in the JPL Special Collections reading room. They can be found by searching the UTSA Libraries Catalog for "John Kight Transportation Manuscript Collection."

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

This collection is housed at UTSA's Main Campus and must be accessed via the John Peace Library Special Collections reading room. To request access, please use the Collections Request Form.

Usage Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the collection must be obtained from University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.

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Separated Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

John Kight Transportation Collection Papers, MS 26, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.

Acquisition Information

Records were donated in 1994 by Douglas A. Peck of VIA Metropolitan Transit (Acc. 1994-04).

Processing Information

Processed by Eric Hartmann in November 1998.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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