MEI Corporation

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Historical Context

The Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT) operated the streetcar and local bus common carrier system in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area from the 1890s until 1970. For many years the TCRT corporate umbrella included four operating subsidiaries which functioned as a unified transportation system: Minneapolis Street Railway Company, the St. Paul City Railway Company, Minneapolis & St. Paul Suburban Railroad Company, and the Twin City Motor Bus Company. Other TCRT subsidiaries included the Minnetonka and White Bear Navigation Company, Rapid Transit Real Estate Corporation, and the Transit Supply Company. The Minneapolis Street Railway Company (MSR) and the St. Paul City Railway Company (SPCR) began continuous service in the 1870s as horsecar carriers. In 1886 the two properties began to operate under a single group of owners when Minneapolis businessman Thomas Lowry and his associates gained control of both. Electrification of the horsecar lines began in Minneapolis in 1889 and in St. Paul in 1890.

The Twin City Rapid Transit Company (a New Jersey corporation) was incorporated in 1891 as a holding company, with the MSR and the SPCR as wholly-owned operating subsidiaries. The TCRT was succeeded in 1939 by a new Minnesota corporation of the same name. A management change in 1949 brought New York financier Charles Green to the presidency of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. Green and his associates decided to abandon the streetcar lines and convert to buses as quickly as possible, apparently in order to maximize their short-term profit. The company's entire streetcar fleet was scrapped and replaced by buses in an aggressive conversion plan completed in 1954 under TCRT president Fred A. Ossanna, a former associate of Green's who managed to oust him in 1951. Ossanna and four of his associates were convicted in 1960 of defrauding the TCRT of company assets, including scrap metal and real estate, during the conversion. Twin City Rapid Transit Company changed its name in 1962 to Minnesota Enterprises Incorporated, and in 1970 this firm became MEI Corporation. MEI left the transit business in 1970 with the takeover of its Twin City Lines subsidiary by the Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Transit Commission, an agency created by the Minnesota Legislature and charged with maintaining and improving public mass transit in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

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