The Southeastern Greyhound Lines (GL) started in 1926 as the Consolidated Coach Corporation (called also Consolidated, CCC, or the CCC Lines) – with the participation of Guy Alexander Huguelet, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a lawyer of German and French-Swiss descent, who from the outset served variously as the legal counsel, the general manager, the vice president, and (mostly) the president.
[Huguelet had begun his career in transportation by working (for six years, starting at age 15) in several clerical jobs for two railroad companies (at different times), the Southern Railway System and the Atlantic Coast Line, in and around Charleston and in Charlotte, North Carolina.]
Consolidated spread farther to the south and southeast by buying even more existing bus operations, including in 1930 the Union Transfer Company (UTC), which had begun in -24 in the Volunteer State.
The SEG Lines also developed extensive local suburban commuter services based in Atlanta, Birmingham, Louisville, and Nashville.
From an early date Consolidated operated in conjunction with Greyhound in a cooperative way (with through-ticketing of passengers, through-checking of their baggage, and coordinated connecting schedules, all of which provided advantage to each company along with convenience to their customers).
The CCC sought (among other carriers) the "Greyhound Lines of Georgia", a new and relatively small but significant operation, which by that time had become a single-line company (after initial growth and subsequent paring or pruning), on a route between Chattanooga (in Tennessee) and Jacksonville (in Florida) via Atlanta and Macon (both in Georgia), through the entire length of the Peach State.
[The other was the Overland GL, based in Omaha, Nebraska, which had begun as two related carriers – the Union Pacific (UP) Stages, a highway-coach subsidiary of the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad (also based in Omaha), and the Interstate Transit Lines, another such subsidiary jointly owned by the UP Railroad and the Chicago and North Western (C&NW) Railway.]
Southeastern about 1944 introduced one clever twist along with its use of the Greyhound dog (especially as applied to the sides of the coaches), possibly in part a response to the "Battle of Britain" target-like symbol used (during World War II) with the dogs on the sides of the coaches belonging to the divisions and the subsidiaries of the parent Greyhound firm.
The State of Tennessee in 1929 issued a joint certificate (of public necessity and convenience) to the TCC and the Union Transfer Company (a predecessor of the Consolidated Coach Corporation and the Southeastern GL) for service between Nashville and Knoxville via Murfreesboro, Woodbury, McMinnville, Sparta, Crossville, Rockwood, and Kingston along US-70 (later redesignated in part as US-70S).
The TCC also started one daily trip each way between Nashville and Knoxville along US-70N via Lebanon, Carthage, Cookeville, and Crossville, joining the Continental Tennessee Lines, another Trailways member company, on that parallel alternate route.
In 1941 the Southeastern GL acquired additional important and strategic routes by buying two more existing firms in the Deep South – the Dixie Coaches (running from Florence to Mobile via Birmingham and via Tuscaloosa, all four in Alabama) and the Union Bus Company (running from Macon to Savannah and from Jacksonville in Florida to Dothan in Alabama via Lake City, Tallahassee, and Marianna, all three in Florida).
Another major acquisition took place late in the life of Southeastern: In 1949 SEG bought the Alaga Coach Lines, which had run between Columbus (in Georgia) and Panama City (in Florida) via Dothan (in Alabama).
Teche had been based in New Orleans, Louisiana; it ran from New Orleans to Natchez (in Mississippi), through Hammond (in Louisiana) to Jackson (in Mississippi and on the way to Memphis, Saint Louis, and Chicago), through Hattiesburg and Meridian (both in Mississippi) to Birmingham (in Alabama), through Mobile and Montgomery (both in Alabama) and Columbus to Atlanta (both in Georgia), through Mobile to Marianna (in Florida and on the way to Tallahassee and the rest of the Sunshine State), and westward through Baton Rouge and Lafayette to Lake Charles (all three in Louisiana and on the way to Houston, the rest of Texas, and the rest of the West), plus along several regional and feeder routes in the southern part of the Pelican State.
The Florida GL had been based in Jacksonville, Florida; it ran throughout the Sunshine State – from Jacksonville, Lake City, and Tallahassee – through Orlando, Tampa, and Saint Petersburg – to Miami and Key West – especially along the East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami via Saint Augustine, Daytona Beach, Titusville, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Stuart, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale – including local suburban commuter service from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and to Homestead (near the tip of the mainland on the Dixie Highway, US Route 1, on the way to Key West via the Overseas Highway.
As the next tourist season approached in Washington, the management of the new DC Transit System, which in 1956 had replaced the Capital Transit Company, felt a need to acquire more coaches (as inexpensively as possible) for its charter and sightseeing operations (in addition to its basic city-transit function), partly in anticipation of expanding its tour and charter activities (by competing more aggressively against its rivals).
Thus the managers of the DC Transit System approached Greyhound, carefully selected 10 copies of the 1948 (that is, the youngest) version of the IC-41 parlor coach and bought them (for a total of only $8,000), repainted and refurbished them somewhat in one of its own shops, and put them back to work.
In November 1960, in another round of consolidation, Greyhound further merged the Southeastern GL with – not into but rather with – the Atlantic GL (called also Atlantic or AGL), yet another neighboring regional company – thereby forming the third of four huge new divisions, the Southern Division of The Greyhound Corporation (called also the Southern GL), which reached as far to the north as Springfield and Effingham (both in Illinois), Columbus (in Ohio), Pittsburgh (in Pennsylvania), and Washington (in DC, the District of Columbia), as far to the east as the Atlantic Ocean, as far to the south as Miami and Key West, and as far to the west as Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lake Charles.