Yellow cab

There are many yellow cab taxicab operators around the world (some with common heritage, some without). The original Yellow Cab Company, based in Chicago, Illinois is one of the largest taxicab companies in the United States.

History

Yellow cabs date back to at least 1798, when the musical comedy, "Cabriolet Jaune" (Yellow Cab), debuted at Paris' Theatre de l’Opera Comique National. Yellow cabs were known in Paris and London throughout most of the 1800s. A yellow cab company shook up the New York Cab system in the mid-1880s, offering a cheaper, more predictable fares. Some of the first automobile cabs in London, in the 1890s, were yellow electric cabs.

In 1908, Albert Rockwell, (founder and General Manager of the New Departure Manufacturing Co. of Bristol, Connecticut) traveled to Europe to evaluate their taxi systems, hoping to develop a similar one in Washington, D.C. 'Wyckoff, Church and Partridge' had a number of orange-yellow colored Rockwell taxicabs operating on Manhattan streets in 1909. By March 1910, the Connecticut Cab Co. (essentially the directors of New Departure Manufacturing Co.) assumed operating control of Wyckoff, Church and Partridge's taxis.