page_title: Checker Taxi
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Checker Taxi / History
caption_attribution_description: English: 1958 Checker Standard, series A8 sedan finished in red and white taxi livery. Picture taken on the show field of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) 2015 Eastern Regional Fall meet that is held every October in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
context_page_description: Checker Taxi was a dominant taxicab company that was based in Chicago, Illinois. Checker Motors was an American car company. Both companies were owned by Morris Markin by the 1930s.
  The Checker, particularly the 1959–82 Checker A series sedans remain the most famous taxicab vehicles in the United States. The vehicle is comparable to the London Taxi in its internationally renowned styling, which went largely unchanged from 1959 to keep production costs down.
context_section_description: Motorized taxicabs began to appear on the streets of major cities from the early 1900s. Particularly in Chicago, where numerous railroads had terminals, there was considerable need for on-demand, point-to-point chauffeur-driven transportation. Hotels, department stores, and office buildings embraced the amenity, but often limited access to their facilities to a single cab company. Kickbacks were common, and the system favored larger operators, who had the financial resources to "play the game".
  By 1920, there were two dominant taxicab companies operating in Chicago: Yellow Cab and Checker Taxi. Yellow Cab Company was founded in 1910 by John Hertz who subsequently established his own cab manufacturing business in 1917. Checker Taxi did not own its own cab manufacturing company, but principally used Mogul Cabs, manufactured by Commonwealth.
  Morris Markin, a clothier from Chicago, Illinois, became the owner of 'Markin Automobile Body', an auto-body manufacturer based in Joliet, Illinois following a default by the owner on a $15,000 personal loan. The facility made bodies for Commonwealth Motors, which marketed the vehicles to cab companies under the trade name 'Mogul'.
  Commonwealth Motors was on the verge of bankruptcy but had an order from Checker Taxi (a privately owned cab company by George Hilsky in Chicago and New York City that had no affiliation with Markin at the time). Markin acquired Commonwealth Motors via a stock swap, and merged it with Markin Automobile Body, forming Checker Cab Manufacturing in order to honor the contractual commitment.
  Checker cabs were manufactured in Joliet for two years, then production was shifted to Kalamazoo, Michigan. The sturdy Checker cabs gained the acceptance and loyal following of Checker Taxi operators in Chicago.
  Markin began buying up Checker Taxi operators' licenses in 1924, gaining full control of the company in 1937. Markin followed Hertz's business plan in having drivers open doors for the fares, and outfitted each driver with a uniform. Checker became the first cab company to hire African-American drivers and the first to require that drivers pick up all fares, not just European-American ones.
  Competition for fares in Chicago was fierce in the 1920s, and drivers began ganging up on one another between fares. The fighting between the two cab companies escalated to the point where Markin's home was firebombed, which prompted Markin to relocate Checker Cab Manufacturing to Michigan.
  Hertz had sold the controlling interest in his Yellow Cab Company to the Parmelee Transportation Company, but in 1929, after a suspicious fire at his stables killed his prized race horses, Hertz sold his remaining shares of Yellow Cab to Markin, who subsequently acquired another one-third in the company from Parmelee, thus taking control of both Parmelee and Yellow Cab. In 1940, Parmelee (including Yellow and Checker Cab) became the largest cab company in the United States.
  Prior to selling the Yellow Cab company, Hertz had sold his taxi-cab, truck, and coach manufacturing arm in 1925 to General Motors. GM wanted to sell part of the acquired business and made an offer to Markin, but Markin declined. Rather than eliminate the capacity of Yellow Manufacturing, General Motors entered the taxicab business in New York City as Terminal Taxi Cab. General Motors operated Yellow Coach as a subsidiary until 1943, at which time the company was merged with GMC Truck Division, and manufacturing shifted from Chicago to Pontiac, Michigan.
  A second "taxi war" broke out, with Checker Taxi Co and Terminal Taxi Co operators fighting it out in New York City. To end the dispute, New York Mayor Jimmy Walker created the New York Taxi Cab Commission (now called the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission), which issued a limited number of cab operator permits, called taxi medallions, and mandated that cabs have seating for five passengers in the rear compartment, which favored Checker and a handful of other manufacturers that built automobiles which met this requirement. Over the next three decades, Markin was invol
caption: 1958 Model A8 taxicab
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