Seattle's taxicab industry began in 1908 with a fleet of three Stearns Landaulets operated by the Seattle Taxicab Company. Competitors elbowed in, rate wars ensued in the 1920s, and Seattle Taxicab was rebranded as Yellow Cab. Drivers unionized and fought for higher wages, and in 1930 the city set a uniform fare of 25 cents for the first quarter mile, 10 cents each additional half mile, and 10 cents for each extra passenger. The business ebbed and flowed for decades thereafter, faltering during the Great Depression and rising again after World War II. The 1970s brought change: the end of unionism and deregulation. In the 1990s, immigrants came to dominate the driver ranks, changing taxi "culture" dramatically. In 2012 came the existential threat of Uber and Lyft. By 2024, taxicabs were few on the streets of Seattle.
Beginnings
Taxa: Latin; to charge a fee for service.
Taxi: Derivative of "taximeter," from German "taxameter."
The automatic taximeter was invented in Germany by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891 but did not see action until 1897, when Gottlieb Daimler applied the device to his Daimler Victoria auto. Friedrich Greiner purchased a fleet of Victorias, turned them loose on the streets of Stuttgart, and the taxicab was born. They spread fast: New York got its first taxis in 1899, followed by Chicago.
The taxicab made its formal debut in Seattle on June 27, 1908, when Charles M. Hatcher incorporated the Seattle Taxicab Company. Claiming Seattle as the third American city to get taxis, Hatcher started with three Stearns Landaulets and mushroomed to 33 by the end of 1909. Six taxi stands, connected to the dispatcher by phone, were located throughout the city; drivers waited for the phones to ring – the "bell" – and on the dispatcher’s instruction proceeded to the caller’s pickup point. Hatcher charged 10 cents for the first mile, 15 cents each subsequent quarter mile, and $1.25 per hour waiting time. After a typical 10-hour shift, drivers put their earnings into a bag, deposited it at the office, and were paid 40 to 50 percent of the gross, a practice that would in time become known as "splitting the sheet," referring to the trip log a driver was required to keep for each shift.
Taximeters were supposedly tamper-proof, but in July 1909 six drivers were caught disconnecting their meters and overcharging passengers, among whom happened to be Seattle Police detectives, and some complained of fare gouging, reckless driving, and rough behavior. Not till 1912 did the city council mandate taximeters for all vehicles advertised as 'taxicabs,' and in 1914 the first rate regulation was imposed: a maximum fare of 50 cents for the first half-mile and 10 cents for each additional quarter-mile, with waiting time 10 cents every four minutes. City Ordinance 34159 of 1915 required annual vehicle and meter inspection by the Department of Public Utilities; upon passing inspection, meters would be sealed with a wire-wrapped lead disc. All taxicab operators were required to carry both for-hire and business licenses and pass a physical examination.
Growth
In December 1917 Seattle Taxicab introduced 25 new cars built expressly for taxi service by the Walden W. Shaw Co., of Chicago, and distinguished from their green fleet mates by their bright yellow livery. Shaw sold cars to operators in several cities, marking the birth of the unofficial Yellow Cab franchise. Seattle Taxi boasted that the purpose-built cars and new marketing tool let them set rates lower than the competition’s and among the lowest in the nation. And with many men in Europe fighting the Great War, the company claimed another innovation: women drivers.
Business was good and taxis proliferated: Metropolitan Taxicab ... Union Taxicab and Messenger Company ... Central Taxicab ... City Taxicab and Auto. So too did unregulated, unmetered "jitneys": private vehicles trolling the streets scooping up multiple passengers –early rideshare. In 1921 the council renewed its ordinance requiring taximeters in all so-called taxicabs, and the following April passed another ordinance establishing 60 taxi stands downtown and in surrounding areas. In January 1923 Seattle Taxicab – now using the name Yellow Cab – countered the competition with a 20 percent fare cut, boasting that "The Thinking Fellow Calls a Yellow." More interlopers came, including the first of Seattle’s "top" taxis, Red Top, which entered the field that month with 10 cars and rates lower than Yellow’s. Brown & White touted "quiet, dignified cabs," and in 1927 came Dollar Transportation, with a fleet of 50 Chevrolets, and Gray Top, with 60 cars.
But a battle was brewing. Rate wars swept the industry as proliferating taxis vied for trade, and by 1928 cutthroat competition and insufficient regulation compelled the city council to act anew. Yellow and Brown & White favored meter rates, while Dollar and Black & White held firm for rates set by zone, which they claimed promoted lower rates and higher ridership. Wildcat taxis were carrying as many as five passengers for one low fare – a de facto jitney service cutting deeply into the revenues of the municipal streetcar system, already in financial trouble. The Seattle Times decried Seattle’s "taxicab problem." Industry efforts to promote guidelines for safety, rate-setting, curbside taxi zones, and other benefits came and went: the Taxicab and For Hire Owners Association of Seattle in 1925, and in 1929, the Taxicab Operators’ Association; and in 1936 the Independent Cab Owners’ Association. Among disparate firms struggling to claim their share of the market, however, harmony was a sometime thing.
The city council debated the question of metered, zoned, or flat rates, and passed the buck to the police and utilities departments. Mayor Frank Edwards declared the zone system unfair and confusing to out-of-town visitors, and asked the police department to arrest drivers running with their meters off: "high-flagging." Red Top president Samuel Taggart was arrested for permitting meterless operation and promptly petitioned the city for an exclusive 25-year franchise, offering to buy out all the other cab companies and pay a franchise tax of 2 percent on gross earnings.
Superintendent of Public Utilities George Avery and University of Washington economics professors advised the city council to support the continuation of competitive, private-owner, meter-only taxicab operation under strictly enforced regulation, at uniform rates. Financier Karl Kaye proposed placing streetcars and taxicabs under syndicate ownership. "Taxicab muddle" dragged on two years, then in August 1930 Mayor Edwards and the council approved an ordinance setting a uniform fare of 25 cents for the first quarter mile, 10 cents each additional half mile, and 10 cents for each extra passenger. Taxi licenses were capped at one for every 2,500 city residents; cars of less than seven-passenger capacity were prohibited, taxis must be painted in two colors, and partitions must separate driver and passenger compartments. Use of discount scrip books was not permitted. Five major taxi operators supported the legislation, while seven companies operating fewer vehicles filed suit against the bill, testifying in Superior Court that the new law had caused a 25 percent drop in business and put some 40 union drivers out of work.
Samuel Taggart continued in his move to monopolize taxi ownership and gained union support by agreeing to a five-year wage schedule. Community groups and some of the press also supported the concept of Seattle public transportation as a unified system under one operator. City council members balked at the idea of monopoly and insisted that any exclusive franchise should be subject to bid. In September 1931 the city council voted down the monopoly scheme.
Working the Streets
Enduring 10-hour shifts in open cars with rudimentary heaters, stiff seats, and temperamental transmissions, early Seattle taxi drivers worked on the edge economically and socially. Unions – Chauffeurs’ Local 196, Auto Drivers’ Local 234, and finally the Taxicab Drivers and Chauffeurs, Teamsters Local 465 – offered a semblance of solidarity but could do little more than uphold wages that most drivers considered minimal. Navigating the era’s often chaotic traffic, drivers were called upon to be diplomats, psychoanalysts, witnesses, procurers, and midwives. And all too often, they were easy targets for assaults, holdups, hijackings, and shootings. (The mandated interior partitions seem to have fallen by the wayside.) The taxi was often a vehicle of choice for bootleggers and other criminals, and drivers themselves tussled over stands and access to railroad stations and piers. Fists, bullets – even acid – flew between union and non-union drivers, and the fraternity gained a reputation for speeding and reckless driving, rudeness, improper advances toward women passengers, swearing, smoking, fare-gouging, rigging meters, and taking long routes. Some drivers resorted to strong-arm "rolling," fare-gouging, and bootlegging in hopes of supplementing their marginal earnings. And always, there was waiting, sometimes interminably, for the next fare.
In March 1917 Seattle Taxicab cut wages from $2.75 per 10-hour day to $1.50 plus 10 percent commission on gross shift revenue. Twenty-one non-union drivers struck, were fired, and the wage cut held until April, when union drivers joined the company and promptly shut it down, demanding wages of three dollars a shift. The company accepted the right of the drivers to unionize but balked at the pay raise. Nonetheless, wages increased, and by April 1918 reached $3.50, at which time Seattle Taxicab’s 44 union drivers, including eight women, struck for an increase to four dollars, declaring that they were unable to support families on what they termed the town’s lowest teaming wages. The company countered with an increase to $3.75, raised to four dollars in one year, which the drivers accepted. In 1928 the basic workday for union drivers was cut from 10 to nine hours, at $4.50 per day, with overtime added at 50 cents the first hour, 35 each additional. By the end of 1928 two companies employed women drivers, and 60 women held city for-hire licenses.
Hard Times
The onset of the Great Depression meant tension, retrenchment, and consolidation. In August 1931 Dollar, Royal Blue, and Red Top were gathered into Elliott Bay Investment Co., a Portland-based concern that had previously acquired Seattle Taxicab/Yellow Cab. Wages were cut to $3.75 a day, prompting a walkout. With the approval of Dave Beck (1894-1993), head of the Joint Council of Teamsters, the companies reinstated the former wages but fired 40 drivers. In May 1932 the city council proposed lowering rates to 25 cents for the first half-mile, but small "independent" companies protested that they could not survive on the lower rates and the 10-cent extra-fare requirement for multiple passengers. The council then considered raising fares, but Elliott Bay Investment objected that the public would not pay. The combine claimed that its cab companies were not making money and was forced to take out a $4,000 loan to meet its payroll.
Holdups, assaults, and shootings continued, and would continue with depressing frequency for decades to come, as did violence between union and non-union drivers, and strikes in several cities including Seattle, where in May 1936 the Taxicab Drivers’ Union pulled 130 men off the job until they got union scale wage. In 1935 the Seattle Farwest Service Co. emerged as a strong competitor to Yellow with a new business model: a "service" company of independent "owner-drivers," and February 1938 saw the Seattle Taxicab Operators’ Association and Local 465 agree in principle to develop a new operating plan to stabilize business.
Wartime
At the beginning of the 1940s business was improving. Yellow Cab added 36 new Plymouths, enlarging its fleet to 200, and credit cards and station wagons were introduced. But war threw all precedent aside. Ridership surged as gasoline and tire rationing obliged motorists to park their cars, and cab drivers at last made real money. "Every Saturday night is New Year’s Eve!" exclaimed a dispatcher, "We could use twice as many cabs as we’ve got" ("Taxi! Every Saturday ...").
The one license per 2,500 residents limit was raised, curiously, to 2,543, and as men entered military service, women clamored to join the taxi ranks. Dave Beck objected that "moral issues" would not countenance women cab drivers. "Let us women handle our own 'moral problems',"retorted applicant Peggy Miller; "I’m not afraid of night work ... I’ve always been able to take care of myself. I’ve been able to take care of drunks all my life – what’s the difference between a drunk man and a sober one?" ("Women, Barred ..."). By October the union had grudgingly relented, and women would be allowed behind the wheel – but not in slacks. A year later, Yellow Cab manager A. H. Wenck declared, "Every one of them is a person I’m proud to employ. They have tact and honor. They know how to meet the public. And their accident rate is very, very low" ("Women Like ..."). As for the drivers: "I’m on my own," said Christa Page, "I’m outdoors, and ninety-eight percent of the people have treated me wonderfully. I’ll never go back to bookkeeping" ("Women Like ...").
In August 1942 the Office of Defense Transportation issued prohibitions against fare "cruising" and making deliveries, limiting speed to 40 mph, trips to 25 miles, and freezing the number of taxis as of September 1. Quarterly gasoline and tire rationing were imposed, and operators received Certificates of War Necessity advising them to carefully estimate their mileage requirements. Now, too, it became mandatory for taxis to haul multiple fares, and drivers were required to display their licenses, with photos, in a prominent place.
Illicit activity boomed. Black market sales of bootleg liquor and procuring of female companionship, especially by independent and "wildcat" cabs, drew the ire of city officials and Teamsters chief Beck. Arrests were stepped up, licenses revoked, and little changed. Hoping to ameliorate the "dynamiting" of cab stands by hordes of taxis, the council created 70 new one-car taxi zones and issued permits to operators for exclusive use of designated stands. Drivers had to be fingerprinted, passengers were barred from occupying front seats unless the passenger compartment was full, and it was unlawful for a vacant cab to refuse fares.
Postwar
At the end of World War II some 350 taxis worked Seattle streets: far more than the ostensible limit of one for every 2,500 residents, but not nearly enough to handle peak demand. Business began falling, but applications for for-hire permits increased; the union opposed new entrants, saying more cabs meant less income in a declining market. With the conclusion of hostilities in August 1945, the wartime restrictions on taxi operations were ended, and multiple fare-loading, which had been mandatory, was now prohibited.
Veterans returned to their taxis, and women drivers back to the hearth. Seattle’s Black population had grown substantially during the war, and Black men began appearing behind the wheel. In June 1946 Yellow Cab hired 14 Black drivers, a move protested by union members. During the war, Yellow’s Black & White Cab had operated exclusively for Black patrons, who had complained of being unable to get service from white drivers. A union representative indicated that the union would accept Black members and that disputes would be ironed out.
On June 10, 1947, Seattle’s 500 union drivers walked off the job, demanding an eight-hour day, 40-hour week, and $10 a day base pay, up from $6.50 for a 51-hour week, and in July accepted a five-day week at $8.50. The union reiterated its call for enforcing the ostensible cap on the numbers of taxis, insisting that too many taxis kept driver income down. And holdups maintained their dreary regularity, many of them committed by servicemen. But now and then, a driver got lucky: In February 1948 young Aurora Taxi driver Nick Nisco picked up five sailors at a roller rink and took them to Detroit, at a total fare of $1,120. Nisco netted $234 plus overtime and a bonus from his company.
Nineteen-forty-six saw one of the taxicab industry’s most significant developments. Adapting wartime innovation, Pacific Telephone & Telegraph began mobile radio-telephone service that summer. Early in 1947 Farwest installed two-way radios in 10 cabs as a trial, liked the results, and following Federal Communications Commission approval, equipped the rest of its 100-car fleet with radio and "robot memory." This was devised by Seattle inventor W. A. Sourwine to record and "remember" the locations of each cab: a driver pushed a button and transmitted their location to the dispatcher. When receiving a service call from a given area, the dispatcher would push a button alerting the "first up" cab in that area, illuminating a light on the taxi dashboard alerting the driver to pick up their handset. This subsequently evolved into a metal panel in front of the dispatcher, divided into specific areas of the city; when a driver called in to report their location, the dispatcher moved a small magnetized metal peg embossed with the cab number to the corresponding zone on the panel. When a call – "bell" – in that area was received from a customer, the dispatcher radioed the first up taxi, sent it to the address, and dropped that cab’s peg into the "occupied" area on the panel, leaving the next cab open for the next bell. When a fare was dismissed, the driver radioed the dispatcher and "pegged in" to the desired area. A new cab culture was born, in which drivers were now united in common cause by radio. The nights became less lonely.
Transitions
In March 1950 Yellow announced that it was not making money under the current labor contract and was considering selling its fleet and becoming a service-only company, following the Farwest model. The following year the union began offering healthcare programs to its 1,100 members. Those members, however, did not include Black people. Urban League executive secretary Lewis G. Watts noted the barring of taxicab union membership to Black people and lamented the relative lack of civil rights progress on the West Coast in general and Seattle in particular. State legislator Charles Stokes petitioned the city council in October 1954 to loosen the quota on taxi licenses and "see if a small number of these licenses cannot be given to those who are now deprived of the right to engage in the taxicab business in this city" ("Teamsters to Oppose ...").
That year, Gray Top moved to the service-company model, petitioning the city council to sell 41 licenses to 28 drivers, who would become independent contractors and use Gray Top dispatching and maintenance. The union opposed the move, claiming it would glut the field with too many cabs and lead to wildcatting, while the 28 petitioners, and their wives, insisted the move would be good for them, their families, and the taxi business. Yellow Cab dusted off its 1950 proposal and in January 1956 the council approved the transfer of 120 licenses to 117 new owner-operators. Both companies would uphold existing union contracts and all drivers would continue as union members.
The Seattle World’s Fair of 1962 brought boom times to Seattle and its 315 licensed taxicabs, but continuing, if not increasing, attacks and robberies, and the persistent economic marginality of the industry (union scale wage was a guaranteed $1.05 an hour, and drivers averaged $60 a week in take-home pay) itself dulled good times. Drivers had to be on their mettle, too, against city officials: In March 1961 driver Kenneth Kjorsvik was fined $25 and suspended for not keeping proper trip sheets, and $5 for not having his ID photo on display. Earl Garber was fined $5 for leaving his Farwest cab unattended in a taxi zone with the meter running. Oddly, there were no cab stands at the fair, prompting ire from visitors, residents, and drivers alike.
The civil rights movement hit critical mass, and in May 1964 the State Board Against Discrimination opened an inquiry into taxicab company hiring practices at the request of the Port of Seattle, after complaints from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) that neither Farwest nor Gray Top employed Black people. That year, James R. Washington became the first Black taxicab owner, under the Yellow banner. Citing growing demand in the mid-1960s, cab companies pressed for more licenses, while drivers protested that this would only crowd the market and depress already meager incomes. Teamsters representative Don Ellis stated that most drivers were not making a living wage and that many of their wives had to work. In 1966 the city council approved an ordinance permitting the issuance of additional licenses subject to hearing and demonstration of public need, and licenses gradually increased.
And always, the dreary drumbeat of gunfire, robbery, assault, and mayhem. In the first half of 1957 there were 14 holdups in two months, a pattern that continued through the following two decades. Industry and city agonized over options – arming drivers with gas spray, installing bulletproof partitions, having a second man ride shotgun – all to little avail. On June 10, 1970, massed Farwest, Gray Top, and Yellow cabs paraded under police escort through downtown to Ballard in honor of driver George Carslay, shot in a robbery. More sad caravans were to come. That November, Farwest began trial installation of safes in cabs, following the lead of several other cities. For a time, crime seemed to slump, only to be followed by another resurgence.
Turmoil
The 1970s brought radical change: the end of unionism and deregulation. At the beginning of the decade Yellow, Farwest, and Gray Top signed three-year contracts with the union (which in 1965 had merged with other locals to become the Newspaper, Magazine, and Taxicab Drivers Union, Local 763). But in August 1973 Local 763 secretary-treasurer Earl Collins died, a passing that may have done as much to speed the end of taxicab unionism as crime and intractable economics. Shortly thereafter, the three-year contracts expired and were not renewed. Taxi unionism in Seattle was dead.
A long-standing law against hailing taxis and taxi "cruising" was overturned, and the medallion system introduced, allowing licenses to be transferred between vehicles rather than restricted to one car. But times only got harder; the oil embargo of 1974 hit the taxi industry hard, and drivers added the increased cost and scarcity of fuel to their woes. Rising costs of gas, repairs, and insurance cut into already marginal revenues, and Yellow Cab suspended operations temporarily in spring 1976 as it scuffled to find a new insurer. A modest fare increase did not satisfy the operators, and city officials began considering a new answer: deregulation.
Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs head Keith Kleinhen proposed abolishing the "archaic" uniform rates and license caps and letting free enterprise reign: "Somebody can come in and cut rates and prosper from it. Then, we’ll see a completely new future for the taxicab industry in Seattle" ("Deregulation ..."). Owners and drivers protested that deregulation would do nothing but glut the already overcrowded field with fly-by-night fare gougers and substandard vehicles. Mayor Wes Uhlman spoke up for deregulation, saying the city should set only maximum fares, not minimums, and Randy Revelle made himself deregulation’s spearhead on the city council.
On June 5, 1978, the city council agreed in principle to end uniform taxi rates and allow operators to set rates for phone-in cab calls only, and to end the restriction on the number of cabs. On May 7, 1979, city and King County councils voted unanimously for deregulation of rates; the city okayed "open entry" and ending the cap on licenses, while the county would retain limits for another year. Operators were quick to raise rates – and hotels and residents were quick to complain of $40 airport trips and ramshackle cabs.
Independent cabs had long been a part of the Seattle taxi industry. Seasoned street veterans – White Cab, Oriental Cab, Bluebird, Ace, Acme – were fixtures on the streets for decades, working their favorite stands and cultivating their loyal clienteles. Now came a bewildering plethora of new indies – Two-Ton Taxi ... T&A Express ... Dungeness Cab ... Nile Flowing to Great Sea – confronting travelers with widely differing rates that were not required to be displayed anywhere on the cars. The era of taxi roulette had begun. Complaints poured in from visitors, hotels, residents, and veteran drivers. "Deregulation has been a disaster," declared one, "it has ruined the taxi business in King County" ("Taxi! Port Will Return ..."). Not until June 1981 did the city council require all taxis to post rates on the interior and exterior of cabs. Cabs on the street multiplied from 346 in 1979 to 512 in 1981, while driver income and average trips plunged. In March 1981 the Port of Seattle took a step toward restoring regulation and instituted maximum fares for all cabs serving the airport. The Department of Licensing promised a public education campaign, which failed to appear, and by fall 1982 the Port of Seattle, The Seattle Times, and major taxi operators were demanding an end to deregulation. It would not happen soon, and in the interim, the Port of Seattle instituted the SeaTac International Taxi Association (STITA) to at least improve and regularize airport service.
Metro discount scrip for seniors and needy, and van and cabulance service extended the industry’s reach. Still, the same problems persisted: too many cabs on the street, too little demand, too low driver income, and lack of protection from criminal acts. As the city and county tried to claw their way out of the morass of deregulation, taxicab commissions were formed, "entry models" were debated, driver surveys conducted, interior partitions again suggested, and digital cameras installed in all cabs. One technology appeared that would soon transform the industry. Introduced in the 1990s, computer dispatching was virtually instantaneous, ending the "dispatcher bottleneck" and producing faster service. GPS made finding addresses and routes easier and provided an extra layer of safety for drivers. More efficient and more profitable, computerization may have been, but something was lost: the constant banter of the radio, offering companionship, guidance, and sometimes humor to drivers, letting them feel connected to the dispatcher and to one another. As it had been in the pre-radio era, driving cab was again a silent and lonely occupation.
Uncertain Future
In October 1996 City Ordinance 118341 reinstated uniform rates, a cap on licenses (medallions) and the requirement that all taxis be affiliated with a licensed taxicab association. Drivers/independent contractors were required to carry King County for-hire and City of Seattle business licenses. By this time, immigrants had come to almost completely dominate the driver ranks, changing taxi culture dramatically. City Ordinance 119872, of March 2000, added requirements for licensing, dispatching, record-keeping, and insurance.
Twelve years later came the direst of existential threats to Seattle’s hard-fought taxicab order: transportation network rideshare companies. Free of regulation and free to charge peak-demand rates, Uber and Lyft have scooped most of the fares, reprising the taxis’ old fight against jitneys. Noting that taxicab market share shrank by half between 2012 and 2019, former Consumer Protection Unit manager Craig A. Leisy warned that tolerance of a patently inequitable situation by city officials and public forced the Seattle taxicab industry to the brink of oblivion.
In 2024 taxicabs are few on the streets of Seattle, or so it seems to one used to hailing a cab on a rainy night. But things may be shifting. "Business is booming!" exclaims the genial driver of Yellow cab 511, a 12-year veteran. "Uber can’t compete with us, they charge so much. Now Yellow Cab is adding more cars" (author interview). His counterpart in cab 1147 has a different outlook: "Business is very bad. Uber, Covid – no good. I must make $1,600 every week, insurance, dispatching, service fees, everything. I am homeless, I live in my cab. Everything depends on luck" (author interview). Yellow 511 may speak for generations of taxi drivers when he says, "Some days are good, some bad, okay? But in this business you can’t be lazy, you have to greet each day, be nice to customers, try hard. I think Seattle will always need taxicabs" (author interview).
