Webb Wallace Estes (12 August 1897–29 June 1971), founder of Estes Express Lines, was born in Burke County, North Carolina, and was the son of Myrta Wilton Webb Estes and David Wallace Estes. His education beyond primary school consisted of what he learned working for his father, who owned a farm, harvested timber, and operated a sawmill. On 18 December 1919 in Burke County, Estes married Ruth Gladys Berry. They had four daughters and two sons.

In 1920 Estes moved to a 100-acre farm that his father had acquired near Chase City, Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and began raising cotton. To support his growing family, Estes also did site work as a grader, while his wife sold eggs and butter produced at home. In 1931 he bought a dilapidated Chevrolet truck, began moving livestock for other local farmers, and soon transported general freight as well. Business proved steady enough that trucking became his main occupation. Estes hired his first driver in 1932, and the following year he opened an office in Chase City. The family moved to town in 1936, by which time he had employed at least one additional driver. In 1937 he named the company Estes Express Lines.

In 1936 the General Assembly gave the State Corporation Commission authority to regulate the rapidly growing trucking industry through route licensure. Such legislation, modeled on federal law, aimed to restrict competition by creating regional monopolies. Route licensure conferred a tremendous advantage on established companies despite the often-bizarre logistical complications it created. It also inhibited growth, however, because the operating rights for new territory had to be purchased from a competitor. Such protectionist laws and a growing reputation for reliability enabled Estes to expand his business during the Great Depression. About 1940 he constructed new terminals in Richmond and Norfolk.

During World War II, Estes and others in the trucking industry had a competitive edge over railroad companies in fulfilling the military's demand for supplies because military bases were often located away from major rail lines, and trucks could deliver orders more quickly. In 1941 Estes Express outgrew its original office space and moved into a larger building nearby. Three years later Estes purchased operating rights to routes on the Northern Neck, a shift in the company's center of gravity that prompted relocation of its home office to Richmond in 1946. Estes continued to reside in Chase City, and until he relinquished control of the company in 1971, he stayed in Richmond hotels during the week and returned home on Wednesday evenings and on weekends.

Reflecting the company's growth in the postwar years, Estes Express Lines was incorporated on 26 November 1948, with Estes as president and treasurer and his son Robey W. Estes as secretary. Between 1944 and 1953 Estes Express doubled in size from about twenty-five employees to more than fifty, while yearly revenue grew to $695,000. Growth was not without challenges, however. Although greatly beneficial in the long run, the Northern Neck expansion was initially a huge financial burden to the debt-wary company. Early in the 1950s the Virginia Mutual Insurance Company considered dropping the express lines' coverage after a spate of traffic accidents involving Estes drivers. Threatened with decertification by the SCC as a result of these violations, Estes entertained at least one serious offer to sell the business, but his son talked him out of it. The company developed safety incentives and improved overall efficiency, and by 1957 annual revenue exceeded $1 million.

Estes suffered a massive heart attack in 1953, the beginning of a long period of declining health and gradual withdrawal from the business he had founded. He remained president while his son became general manager and assumed responsibility for daily operations of the company. Estes continued to advise his son on major decisions and approved two acquisitions that more than doubled the company's operating territory. Estes's first interstate venture came with the purchase of the North Carolina–based Coastal Freight Lines in 1965. Two years later Estes Express bought Carolina-Norfolk Truck Lines, a larger company. During this decade the company also added terminals in Newport News, South Boston, Springfield, and Winchester.

In his management style Estes demonstrated fiscal and cultural conservatism. He believed in slow, cautious growth. True to his Baptist roots, he forbade alcohol in his household except when entertaining business associates, who were permitted to imbibe only in the bathroom. Estes disliked idle pastimes; his sole recreation was maintaining the Chase City farm, where he raised livestock. He served on the Mecklenburg County board of supervisors and sat on the boards of the First Commonwealth Corporation and the Community Memorial Hospital (later Community Memorial Healthcenter).

Webb Wallace Estes died of complications from diabetes at a Richmond hospital on 29 June 1971. He was buried in Woodland Cemetery, in Chase City. When he died, the company had about 650 employees, operated terminals in Virginia and the Carolinas, and grossed $10 million annually. Estes Express Lines continued to expand, and by the turn of the twenty-first century the company, still family-owned, employed 8,100 people, earned annual revenue of almost $700 million, and had extended its operations to the western United States. In 2003 Estes Express Lines entered the air freight business.

Sources Consulted:
Birth date in World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards (1917–1918), Record Group 163, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; biographical information provided by granddaughter Trish Garland, son-in-law Thomas Hupp, and daughter Mary Estes Speight (all 2008); State Corporation Commission Charter Book, 227:234–236, Record Group 112, Library of Virginia; "Estes After WWII," Estonian 3 (spring 1996): 6–9; feature article in business section of Richmond Times-Dispatch, 10 April 2006; [Paula Graham Evans], A Tradition of Service: The History of Estes Express Lines (2006), with portraits; obituaries in Richmond Times-Dispatch and Richmond News Leader, both 30 June 1971, and South Hill Enterprise, 7 July 1971.

Image courtesy of Estes Express Lines.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Myja R. Thibault.

How to cite this page:
Myja R. Thibault,"Webb Wallace Estes (1897–1971)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2015, http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Estes_Webb_Wallace, accessed [today's date]).

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