Dick's Hideaway

Dick MacKenzie - www.dickshideaway.com

Sam Logozzo and Iron Range

Recently Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay published a small article about the beginning of Iron Range Bus Lines in Thunder Bay. Established in 1940 by Sam Logozzo, Iron Range Bus Lines has been owned and operated by the Logozzo family for over 80 years.  The company started out with one bus that travelled back and forth from Kakabeka to Thunder Bay every day.
I drove buses for Sam Logozzo in 1971-’72 while a student at Lakehead University. It was an almost perfect job for a university student, and Sam was the perfect boss.
I stayed in touch with Sam’s son Joe for many years.
After graduating from Lakehead in 1973 I moved to Sioux Lookout, where I remain today. At about that time Sam bought the local Sioux Lookout school bus line where it continues even now, operating as Iron Range Bus Lines.
“My” bus during the early ‘70s was #89. Despite promptings from my roommates I never got around to writing any little stories about Bus 89, though my friends were happy to hear some of my tales.
Thirty years, or more, ago Iron Range Bus 89 came to its final rest in a back field of my neighbor, a mechanical handyman with discarded hulks littering his property. It is covered with weeds, vines, small undergrowth trees, and debris of all kinds, no more than 200 yards from my house here in Sioux Lookout.
When spring shouts out and snow settles a bit next month I’ll walk over and thrash through the bushes to get a couple pictures of Bus 89, my old heart throb from a half century ago.