10/09/2026
Uber was founded as "UberCab" in March 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp in San Francisco. The idea was born after Camp struggled to hail a taxi on a snowy night in Paris. By 2012, the company launched UberX, introducing a low-cost option that utilized everyday private vehicles. Driven by its highly profitable rideshare and delivery segments, Uber’s market capitalization reached roughly $160 billion by 2026.
Yet, for all their modern technology, Uber and Uber Eats are simply reinventing a wheel that small-town taxi services perfected 50 to 75 years ago.
Long before smartphone apps, local cabs in Watervliet and Coloma did far more than just drive people around. Around 1922, Floyd Wallace of Coloma and several other drivers began offering taxi services to year-round residents and summer resorters alike.
Operating a cab required a municipal license. In fact, these license fees added a substantial $350.00 (nearly $7,000 today) to Watervliet’s treasury during the 1921–1922 fiscal year. If you needed a ride, you could easily hitch a lift to local hotspots like the Ellinee or Crystal Palace. Alternatively, if a local merchant didn’t offer free delivery, a taxi driver would gladly bring prescriptions or groceries right to your doorstep.
Few taxi businesses survived the Great Depression, and the fuel and tire rationing of World War II caused local cabs to nearly fade away entirely. Still, Floyd Wallace kept his cab running through those lean and difficult years.
Following the war, a new wave of cabbies emerged to whisk passengers to their destinations. Jim Hamlin, a retired Navy Petty Officer, became one of the first licensed drivers in Coloma after returning home from service. Taxis became an essential mode of transportation during this era, bridging the gap until post-war automobile production could finally catch up with consumer demand.
By the 1960s, local taxi companies were thriving and fiercely competing for business. In 1963, veteran driver Floyd Wallace was still taking fares. Nearby, driver Gust Anton started hacking in Coloma in 1962. Just three years later, Anton logged his longest-ever fare: a massive, 1,200-mile round trip to Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
As business boomed, territory disputes arose. Coloma cabbies frequently complained that unlicensed Watervliet taxis were poaching their fares. In response, both towns drafted and approved updated taxi ordinances to regulate the trade.
The Watervliet Cab Company—owned by D. Wilkens of Hartford and operated by Art Hunkins of Watervliet—launched in 1961 out of a new taxi stand at the Midget Lunch diner (currently the Side Track II) on Main Street. Their rates were incredibly affordable. City rides cost 50 cents to anywhere within city limits. Out-of-town rides ran 35 cents per mile from the point of origin. Drivers would pick up prescriptions, groceries, or parcels and deliver them to your home for the standard cab fare plus a 25-cent fee.
The local industry saw major shifts as the decades progressed. In 1969, Joe Eagan retired from Watervliet’s taxi service after an impressive 44 years on the road. Shortly after his retirement, the Watervliet Taxi and Delivery Service started up, featuring driver Floyd "Sam" Curry.
By 1972, Coloma was served by two competing businesses: Denny’s Taxi and Coloma Cab. In 1979, J&J Taxi took over Sam Curry's operation in Watervliet. Three years later, Curry’s daughter, Gay Horton, alongside her husband Ron and their sons, opened Horton’s Taxi. The family ran a true round-the-clock operation, serving the community 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Eventually, traditional taxi services in the North Berrien area faded into history, gradually replaced by modern regional bus and transit systems.
