08/31/2025
From a Horse and buggy in 1906… to Bankruptcy in 2023
The story of Yellow begins in 1906, when Grover Cleveland “Cleve” Harrell started offering rides in Oklahoma City with a horse-drawn hack. Within a year, he bought a Model T Ford. Riders paid extra to ride in an automobile, and business exploded.
In 1918, Cleve painted one of his cars yellow. Other drivers mocked him, but passengers loved it. Soon all his cars were yellow, and his company became known as the Yellow Cab Company of Oklahoma.
His older brother, A.J. Harrell, joined him, and together they expanded into buses, gasoline, and eventually freight. In 1929, the Harrells launched Yellow Transit Freight Lines, pioneering the idea of consolidating small shipments into full trailer loads.
The company stayed small until 1952, when George E. Powell Sr. bought it. Under new leadership, Yellow became an innovator in trucking. By the 1960s, the company had grown nationwide. In 1968, it rebranded as Yellow Freight System, and by the 1980s deregulation era, it had built a coast-to-coast network of distribution centers.
In 1992, Yellow Corporation was formed as the parent company. Then came its era of bold acquisitions:
2003: Yellow, the #2 LTL carrier, bought Roadway, the #1 carrier, in a $1.05 billion deal.
2005: Yellow acquired USF Corp. for $1.5 billion, swelling revenue to nearly $10 billion.
The new giant, renamed YRC Worldwide, controlled some of the biggest names in freight: Roadway, New Penn, Holland, and Reddaway. By the mid-2000s, it was hauling for corporate giants like Boeing, GE, Caterpillar, and Georgia-Pacific.
But debt from those massive deals crushed the company. By 2008–09, YRC was losing hundreds of millions a year. The Teamsters union agreed to wage cuts to keep the company alive. Shareholders were wiped out in restructuring.
In 2020, during COVID, Yellow secured a controversial $700 million federal bailout loan in exchange for nearly 30% government ownership. A later Congressional probe said Yellow should never have received the money.
Despite attempts at restructuring, by July 2023 Yellow collapsed under $1.3 billion in debt. The Teamsters accused management of mismanagement. Yellow accused the Teamsters of blocking restructuring. Customers fled to rivals like FedEx and ABF.
Yellow’s CEOs didn’t cause every problem (debt, deregulation, union challenges, recessions all played a part), but leadership decisions magnified weaknesses instead of fixing them. The acquisitions in the 2000s loaded the gun, and Darren Hawkins’ inability to restructure or restore confidence pulled the trigger
On August 6, 2023, Yellow filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ending more than a century of operations. Its 30,000 employees were left without jobs, and its terminals were auctioned off to rivals like XPO and Saia.
From a horse and buggy in 1906 to a $10 billion freight giant… and finally, to a $1.9 billion liquidation sale in 2023. Yellow’s story is one of ambition, innovation, risky bets, and collapse.
