History

In the early 1900's from his farm in Barrington,
Illinois Adwalt Hartwig ran a gravel truck
business. His company put in many of the
roads in the area including Barrington Rd,
Randall Rd, and RT. 25. When the depression
hit in 1928, Adwalt lost his gravel trucks.

He then decided to bid on a mail contract that included
service to the towns of Island Lake and Lake Zurich.
We continued to service these towns up until July of
2001. Adwalt ran this route until the early 50's when
he turned it over to his youngest son Norman. This
was a one vehicle route up until 1959.

The early 60's brought more contracts with service
to Harvard and another to Clinton, Iowa. In 1962
Hartwig was awarded a multi tractor trailer, multi-
driver contract. That is when Normans brother,
Royal (RA) founded Hartwig Brothers. They
continued this way into the mid 60's.

In 1966 Hartwig was awarded a large straight
truck contract out of the north suburban postal
facility. That was when Royal James(RJ), Wayne
Wickwire, and Cecil Coghill came into the
company as partners with Norman and RA. RJ
moved from California, and Wayne who had
already been driving since the early 60's moved
into the office to run this growing company. Cecils
background was working for the Post Office. 1966
is the year the company became incorporated as
Hartwig Brothers/Hartwig Transit, Inc.

The seventies brought more and more large tractor trailer
routes. In the mid 1970's Hartwig even had the Chicago
Fleet trailer contract. Gerald Hartwig (son of Norman)
started in 1972 as a driver and helper in the garage. In 1976
he started working in the office full time

The Eighties brought the opening of our Oshkosh,
Wisconsin Terminal along with the Sharonville, Ohio
facility (Cincinnati). Royal, who started in 1984 was a
driver for eight years before moving into the office. You
will still see him here and there driving, especially during
the Christmas rush.

The company is now headed by Wayne, Gerald , and
4th generation Royal Jay. We currently operate about
100 trucks, run in 14 states, and run more then one
million miles a month.

Being a family owned company we feel that all of our
employees are part of our family. We would like to take
this opportunity to thank everyone for their hard work
and devotion. With everyones help through all these
years, we've had First Class Delivery Since 1929.