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

Return to the Table of Contents

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."

Selected material in this collection has been digitized and is available in our digital collections.

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

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.

Use Restrictions

The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Separated Material

Return to the Table of Contents

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.

Return to the Table of Contents

Detailed Description of the Collection

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Table of Contents

Special Formats
			Photographs
			Over 3000 prints, most taken by John Kight. Many of the photographs were taken to provide publicity shots and visual records for the company. Others were taken for personal reasons. The maintenance department in which Kight worked is especially well documented. Many of the prints have negatives in the negatives subseries (SFS2). Many of the prints have written notes and dates, often signed by Kight, provided on the back.
			Arranged by subject in photograph and organized chronologically.
Box	Folder
74				VIA
					Buses
	9					Gray line, 1935-1970 and undated
	10					Interior
						Routes
							Bus 600
	11							Undated
Box	Folder
75	1							Undated
	2						General, 1971-1979 and undated
	3					Traffic Guide, undated
						General
	4						Undated
	5						1925-1975 View Folder Contents
					Garage
						Buses
	6						Undated
	7						1936-1975
	8					Cars, 1927-1980 and undated
						Construction Equipment
	9						Undated
	10						1941-1963
	11						1964-1978
	12					Emergency Vehicles, 1962-1975
Box	Folder
76						Equipment
	1						Undated
	2						1927-1957
	3						1958-1962
	4						1963-1975
						Trucks
	5						Undated
	6						1955-1957
	7						1958
	8						1959-1962
	9						1962-1975
					Individuals
	10					Construction, 1957-1964 and undated
	11					Drivers, 1953-1967 and undated
						Mechanics
							Inside Garage
	12							Undated
	13							1936-1957
	14							1958-1960
Box	Folder
77	1							1961-1965
	2							1966-1973
	3						Outside Garage, 1929-1975 and undated
	4					Office Workers, 1911-1970 and undated
Box
OM6						Oversize: Personnel Photographs , undated
						Photographs are arranged alphabetically by name
Box
OM9						Oversize: Framed photograph montage containing 26 photos of streetcars, San Antonio scenes, and transportation workers, May 30, 1933
						Photographs are arranged alphabetically by name
Box	Folder
77						Portraits
	5						A-K, 1901-1969 and undated
	6						L-Z, 1928-1967 and undated
							Unidentified
	7							Undated
	8							1930-1990
					Groups
	9					Boarding Buses, 1957-1967 and undated View Folder Contents
	10					General, 1943-1970 and undated
	11					Mechanics, 1902-1977 and undated
	12					Officials, 1903-1971 and undated
						Unidentified
	13						Undated
	14						1927-1972
Box	Folder
78					Properties
	1					Construction, 1927-1973 and undated
	2					Garage, 1933-1975 and undated
	3					General, 1957-1979 and undated
	4					Interior, 1956-1970 and undated
	5					Stops, 1971-1980 and undated
	6					Transportation Building, 1956-1969 and undated
	7					Yard, 1927-1955
					Presentations and Awards
	8					Awards, 1944-1974 and undated
	9					Presentations, 1958-1981 and undated
	10					Parties and Receptions, 1967-1974
Box	Folder
79					Publicity
						General
	1						Undated
	2						1943-1983
Box	Folder
OM8							Oversize:Displays
	1							Display 1-25
	2							Unlabeled
Box	Folder
79					Tracks
	3					Undated
	4					1900-1970
					Trolleys
	5					Undated View Folder Contents
	6					1878-1965 View Folder Contents
	7			Celebrities, 1932-1968
	8			HemisFair, 1967-1968
	9			Military, 1941-1969 and undated
				San Antonio
	10				Undated
	11				1904-1964
	12				1965-1978
	13			Trains, 1926-1969
Box	Folder
80	1			Miscellaneous, 1956-1981 and undated
	2			National City Lines, undated
	3			Other Cities, 1960-1961 and undated
			Negatives
			Some negatives have prints in the photographs subseries (SFS1) but the similarity among several prints made it difficult to assign each negative with a print. There are also some negatives that have no matching print.
			Arranged by subject in negative and organized chronologically.
	4			Awards, 1958-1970
	5			Buildings, 1959-1962 and undated
	6			Buses, 1963-1970 and undated
	7			Cars and Trucks, 1964-1973 and undated
				Maintenance Shop
	8				Undated
	9				1960-1978
Box	Folder
81	1			Miscellaneous, 1962 and undated
				People
	2				Undated
	3				Undated
	4				1963-1971
	5			San Antonio, 1973 and undated
	6			Streetcars, 1930-1968 and undated
			Other Formats
			Contains a selection of slides, postcards, videotapes and LPs used by VIA. A small number of artifacts, dating from the streetcar era, are included.
			Arranged by format and organized chronologically.
Box
Slide Cabinet				Slides, 1972 (Slides are kept in cabinet; Inventory Available)
					Buses
					People
					Trolleys
					People
					Presentations
					VIA
Box	Folder
81				Post Cards
	7				VIA, 1961
Box	Folder
82	1				Trolley Museums, undated
	2				Promotional, undated
				Video Tapes
	3				Undated
	4				Undated
	5				1978
Box	Folder
OM3				Oversize: LPs
	4				The Modern Streetcar, undated
	5				Oversize materials, undated
Box
OM7				Artifacts, undated
					Oversize: Safety can
Box
112					Rail Extent (4 pieces)
					Measurement devices

Return to the Table of Contents