Our story
From a horse-drawn wagon in Philadelphia to a freight brokerage in Bensalem, under one MC number.
Dock Street, Philadelphia, early 1900s.
One number since 1941
Look up Penn Logistics on FMCSA and you'll find MC-693. The Interstate Commerce Commission issued it on May 20, 1941, to Harry B. Niehaus, Jr. of Philadelphia, who had been delivering freight by horse-drawn wagon well before that. What follows comes from the company's filings.
From the filings
- Before 1935
A horse and a wagon
Harry B. Niehaus, Jr. starts out delivering goods around Philadelphia by horse-drawn wagon. By the time Washington begins regulating trucking he is running trucks under Pennsylvania operating certificates, and the oldest filings we have renew rights he already held.
- 1935
Seven trucks
The work is refrigerators, carpets, boilers and structural steel that had to be rigged, along with general freight between Philadelphia and Delaware County. Pennsylvania renews his rights and, in 1937, makes them permanent.
- 1941
MC-693
On May 20 the Interstate Commerce Commission grants Certificate No. MC-693, and Niehaus trucks can cross state lines to New York, Wilmington, Newark and the Jersey Shore. We still work under that number.
- 1952
North to coal country
Cast-iron castings go from a Philadelphia foundry to the American Chain and Cable plant in Exeter, Luzerne County. The empty containers come back on the return trip.
- 1961
Following a customer out of the city
Philadelphia was once the country's biggest carpet maker, and by now its mills are closing or leaving. When the Downs Carpet Company opens a second plant in Upper Moreland Township, Niehaus goes along, hauling between the old plant and the new one.
- 1971
Wool, yarn and roofing cement
Philadelphia was called the Workshop of the World, and in 1909 it made more textiles than any other city on earth. The mills that remain still need wool and yarn. Niehaus hauls it in, along with caulking and roofing cement from Montgomery County.
- 2012
From carrier to broker
The company stops running its own trucks and becomes a freight brokerage. The MC number stays the same.
- Today
Penn Logistics
Penn Logistics LLC is a licensed broker of property working under MC-693, from an office in Bensalem, just outside Philadelphia.
What carried over
The freight in those early filings was heavy and awkward: boilers that needed rigging, refrigerators, rolled carpet, structural steel. Somebody had to work out how to get it there in one piece.
We don't own the trucks anymore. We find them, and the working-out is still our job, so it doesn't have to be yours.
Why the number is so low
The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 put interstate trucking under the ICC, and the ICC numbered applications as they arrived. MC-693 was among the first 700 in the country.
Look up MC-693 on FMCSA