The History of Holiday Express Corporation

Holiday Express was founded in December 1969.

Prior to that, present owners Basil "Sonny" Roberts and Merle "Bubs" Johnson were owner operators that had their equipment leased to someone else and were trip leasing to John Morrell & Company located in Estherville.

John Morrell approached them about getting their own authority and hauling directly for Morrell. With the help of Chet Pierson the rest, shall we say, is history.

Once their authority was established they purchased 6 new Peterbilts. One of the original drivers they hired, Ronnie Kletsch worked for Holiday Express through December of 2014.

Business with Morrell continued to be good and their fleet began to expand.

The original location was a Phillips 66 gas station located on Central Avenue in Estherville. As time passed, they outgrew their building and moved to a building that had formerly housed the Sather Cookie Company (the old Rohlin Building).

Business continued to be good and they outgrew that building as well. With the help of the EIDC (Estherville Industrial Development Corporation), Sonny and Bubs built a new office building and a shop directly across from the John Morrell plant located on South First St.

That was their home for a number of years and still presently is the trailer shop. The move to the present location in the industrial park was made in 1983.

Sonny and Bubs needed to come up with a name for the business when they were first applying for authority. They struggled to do this. Thankfully there was a Holiday gas station next to the Phillips 66 station they began in, thus the name Holiday Express was created.

There have been many many changes over the years, most for the better and some they question. However they attribute the continued success of Holiday Express to hard work and surrounding themselves with good people. Sonny died on November 27th of 2013. Bubs’ son, Doug joined the operation in February of 2014. They are looking forward to many more years of continued success.