United Carriage Co. sales handbill

The American District Telegraph in San Francisco, incorporated 1876, bought up many of the city’s carriages and consolidated them into the United Carriage Co., one of the first dispatch-oriented cab fleets anywhere. By controlling cab dispatch via telegraph, the UCC promised to reform the unruly occupation of hackdrivers. No doubt this was a great relief to new arrivals in the "wild west" who could be subject to "violence" or "extortion" from robbers upon their arrival. The system was short-lived, however, being superceeded by the telephone within a few years.