Bus line once served Ruston neighborhoods – Lincoln Parish Journal

By Wesley Harris

Ruston once had a bus service that ran through Ruston’s neighborhoods in the 1940s and 1950s.

The private buses ran on various routes, primarily to reach downtown and Louisiana Tech.

Owners W. E. Simmons and J. H. Kilgore started service in January 1946 with six routes running from City Hall on West Mississippi Avenue to Woodland Park, Cooktown Road, US 80 West and the Washington Heights area near Vaughn Avenue.

While most municipal transportation systems today rely on tax dollars, Ruston Bus Lines was a private entity, created by the Ruston City Council, that relied on its profits to continue operating.

Initially, one bus would run a route and then move on to the next route. For example, for Route 1, the bus would leave City Hall at 6:00 a.m. and arrive in Woodland Park at 6:10 a.m. The bus would then return to City Hall, picking up passengers along the way. At 6:20 a.m., the bus would return to City Hall and begin Route 2 to Wilder’s Store on Cooktown Road and then to Louisiana Tech at 6:34 a.m. before returning to City Hall.

Route 3 departed at 6:35 a.m. for U.S. 80 West and then to Tech, before returning to City Hall at 7:00 a.m. At approximately 7:15 a.m., the bus departed for Washington Heights, Wright’s Service Station on U.S. 167 South, and arrived back at City Hall at 7:39 a.m.

Routes 5 and 6 covered US 167 north to Toma Lodge and the Farmerville Highway-East Mississippi Avenue area.

At first the buses ran every two hours. Later they repeated their loops every hour.

Those route times would no longer work today, given the increased traffic and large number of traffic lights.

A single bus journey cost 10 cents, but due to increased operating costs this fare had to be increased to 12 cents in 1948.

In 1948, an afternoon route was added from Ruston High School via Louisiana Tech to Eastland Avenue, allowing students to return home for lunch and be back at school by 1 p.m. Another route, started in 1948, took workers to the California natural gas plant in the Nobles neighborhood.

In 1950 a bus line to and from Choudrant was established.

The line appears to have closed in late 1951. No further advertisements have appeared since then.

Another short-term bus line ran back and forth between Farmerville and Ruston, primarily to allow Union Parish residents to shop in downtown Ruston.