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This week we feature a real photo promotional postcard produced by the Denver Omnibus & Cab Company of Denver, Colo. The description on the back notes that the main offices of the company were located at Office 15th and Cheyenne in Denver and listed J.M. Kuykendall as president.
The company had a number of locations around Denver, including a horse shoeing department at 1447 Cleveland, an electric garage at 1508 Cleveland and the motor garage at 1647 Court Place. The company offered private touring cars in and around Denver and had private automobiles to order.
The card shows a full busload of people posing in what is one of the Denver Omnibus Company’s buses. From the written message on the back, we also know that one of those in the picture wrote the message on the card. Sent on July 21, 1909, from Pueblo, Colo., to Mr. R.T. Hill of Tuscumbia, Mo., the personal message reads: Hello Ray, how are you all. Will write soon. We are all well, hope you are same. Here is my photo I had taken while I was in Denver in an automobile. Write soon, W. A Carey.
In 1915, the company was a defendant in a restraint of trade and unfair competition lawsuit drawn by the Castle Rock Mountain Railway and Park. Denver Omnibus, along with the co-defendants Union Depot Company, the Seeing Denver Car Company and the Denver Tramway Company, were unsuccessfully sued by the CRMR&P for attempting to monopolize the cab industry in Denver by crowding the streets near the railroad depot with available cabs and hacks for disembarking train passengers. Apparently, the CRMR&P had a hard time getting a cab in edgewise outside the depot.
On Aug. 15, 1915, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission offered no ruling on the matter, noting that the Colorado P.U.C. had no jurisdiction to entertain a petition alleging violations of the laws prohibiting unfair competitions and illegal combinations in restraint of trade. Commissioners were S.S. Kendall, Geo. T. Bradley and M. H. Aylesworth, presiding.
Michael Bushnell
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