Shortly after 1 a.m. on a January night in 1955, two Arkansas Motor Freight Lines employees rescued people from a burning building.
While standing on the dock at the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, service center, dock worker Jimmie L. Barbre (pictured) and road driver C.F. Waters saw flames “shooting skyward” from a row of buildings a block away. They called the local fire department and then ran to the scene of the fire.
In 1962, ArcBest Technologies (then known as Data-Tronics) was organized. It employed 10 people who worked using an IBM 4K 1401 Card System Computer.
“The Data-Tronics division of the parent company was organized to effect savings for the company and to render customer service,” the employee magazine reported in 1962. “It will handle such important and time-consuming operations as accounting systems, sales analyses, payrolls, computing and printing checks, labor and cost analyses, inventory control and market analyses.”
A new system aimed to improve “the company’s efforts toward efficiency and expediency” was announced in 1959. ArcBest, then known as Arkansas-Best Freight System, told employees about the installation of the 83-B1 Automatic Teletypewriter System.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Company installed the equipment in 14 major service centers in June 1959.
In 1963, ArcBest (then known as Arkansas-Best Freight) held export-import seminars in Columbus, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; and Fort Smith, Arkansas.
The sessions were “designed to present to the shippers, company personnel and all others interested in foreign trade a step-by-step ‘how to’ explanation of the mechanics of finding foreign markets, banking connections, preparing export shipments, marine insurance and many other aspects of foreign trade.”
In 1935, Fort Smith, Arkansas-based OK Transfer & Storage acquired Arkansas Motor Freight and assumed its name. OK Transfer and Arkansas Motor Freight are the predecessors of today’s ArcBest.
The original Arkansas Motor Freight trucks were C-40 International trucks, with trailers manufactured in Fort Smith. The truck length was 22 feet, with a payload of 18,000 pounds.
In 1962, an advertisement for Arkansas-Best Freight System Inc., known today as ArcBest, touted the company as “America’s Favorite LTLers.”
It also included a map that showed the locations of “our 42 hustling, bustling” service centers.
An advertisement in 1962 touted company growth and the opening of a new service center.
In late 1973, ArcBest carrier ABF Freight opened a new service center in Memphis, Tennessee.
At an open house for employees and families, employees posed with “one of three 2740 machines in the new terminal,” according to a handwritten note on the photo.
The ABF Freight® Road Team represents the best of professional drivers for ArcBest carrier ABF Freight. They serve as ambassadors for ABF Freight and the trucking industry. We believe ABF Freight drivers can contribute significantly to enhancing the public image of the trucking industry and the people who move freight.
In September 1959, ArcBest (then known as Arkansas-Best Freight System Inc.) purchased Healzer Cartage Company of Kansas City, Missouri.
The purchase gave ArcBest authority into the Kansas and Milwaukee areas, adding about 1,800 franchise miles to the carrier’s authority. “Now we can also offer one-line freight service between our Ohio points and Kansas and between Kansas City and Chicago and Milwaukee without intermediate handling,” said Robert A. Young Jr., president of Arkansas-Best Freight System.
In 1955, ArcBest (then known as Arkansas Motor Freight) was growing beyond its local roots. Our advertising campaign that year touted “A finer service for all Arkansas,” and it outlined the opening of a large service center in Little Rock, Arkansas.
