Around 1850, the first moving companies began offering professional relocation services. Both local and long-distance moves were possible, so moving companies could make money with individual and group moves. Although the first real moving services didn't exist until the 1940s, the first “moves” began in a very humble and practical way. During the colonization of the West, in the 19th century, before the Intercontinental Railroad was built, people collected all their belongings and put them in covered wagons designed specifically to carry household furniture, and they went to the West using only horsepower.
Wagon trains, which were groups of families moving west, worked together, as they made loading, transporting, and unloading much easier for all participants working as a group. Modern moving companies, such as our long-distance moving company, started in the rail system. It all started on Christmas Day 1830, when the first railway system was completed. At the beginning of the 20th century, some small transportation companies considered that local transportation by truck could be less expensive than by train and began to offer public moving services.
Today's moving companies are very different from those of yesteryear, although their purpose has always been the same. The history of the moving industry reminds of many more moving companies, some of them are still operating and others have closed. While at the end of the 19th century, the main criterion for moving companies was to have a strong backrest and a horse cart, information technology and logistics now define today's moving and storage sector. Since rail transportation became the main mode of transportation in the United States during the 1940s and 60s (of the 19th century), small moving companies created their first warehouses near railroads for greater convenience.
The Census Bureau, as quoted by Wikipedia, informs us that around 40 million homes move a year, which is already an incredible figure in itself. Since then, we've grown to become one of the largest full-service moving and warehousing companies in the country, with nearly 150 offices across the United States. Since then, I've been monitoring the industry and helping people find professional moving companies and better prepare for moving day. But how did the moving company business start? If you think about it, we, as human beings, move by nature and move in search of survival and the opportunity to form a community.
Moving companies started popping up everywhere, including some original services that are still in operation today. Some of the oldest companies in the industry have survived to this day, such as the Aero Mayflower Transit Company of Indianapolis (now known as Mayflower Transit) and Johnson Storage and Moving United (now an agent of United Van Lines). Of course, the main reason why people clustered was a greater ability to survive on the road (groups like that used to be targets of Indian incursions, diseases, wild beasts, etc.), but the mere fact that there was a need for moving companies is considered to be the spark that caused the fire. Modern moving companies, with their large trucks and tractor-trailers, are nothing more than an extension of the first custom moving companies that started more modestly.
However, unlike modern times, in which we are faced with an overcrowded moving business scene, a long time ago there were hardly any moving companies worth talking about...
