ARIZONA TRUCKING Decades of Dogged Determination


Hotel Westward Ho in 1937, site of AMTA’s annual convention for several decades


 E. E. “Whitey” Chambers, 1st AMTA President 1937


BY KAREN RASMUSSEN Executive Editor


AS RESEARCHED BY LARRY WOOLSON ATA Chairman 2005-2007


Although the entire history of the


trucking industry covers barely a full century, people have had the need to “haul stuff” since time began. From waterways to horse-drawn wagons to railroads to trucks to airplanes, the transportation of goods has evolved from primitive beginnings to a much more sophisticated, technologically oriented industry today. But stripped of its clean, efficient engines, streamlined truck bodies, GPS tracking, modern tires and instantaneous communication, trucking is still basically a simple function: move the cargo from Point A to Point B, and do it as fast, safely and cost-effectively as possible. Trucking really began with the advent


of the automobile. The earliest trucks were little more than cars with part of the body


16


cut away or modified to carry cargo. A chart found in the book “Motor Trucks of America”, published by the B. F. Goodrich Company, showed specifications—and costs of—fifteen different truck makes and models being produced in 1917. Following World War I, truck designs


changed dramatically. Balloon tires replaced solid rubber tires, closed cabs became standard, and bigger, more powerful trucks took the place of trucks built on auto chassis. Equipment was evolving, but the roads were terrible. In 1919, a young West Point graduate—Lt. Dwight Eisenhower— joined a cross-country convoy of 80 Army trucks to call attention to the nation’s lack of decent roads. The convoy took 62 days to travel from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, California. That experience—and the difficulties he encountered in moving military equipment around Europe during World War II—created in Eisenhower a


vision of a network of modern highways that could quickly move commerce and military equipment around the U.S. From the early 20th century, trucking


helped build Arizona, hauling copper from Arizona mines to processing and manufacturing plants, raw cotton to gins and mills, cattle to railheads and local markets, and citrus to packing and distribution centers. Today, a modern trucking industry operates in every aspect of Arizona’s economic life, delivering textbooks, medical supplies, retail goods and the building blocks of highways and energy production for the state. Less than a decade after the stock


market crash of 1929, a small group of visionaries came together to form the Arizona Motor Transport Association. Its formation and the fabric of its 75-year history are woven into the tapestry that depicts boom and bust cycles, equipment


Arizona Trucking Association 2012 Yearbook


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