There was a time in Penn Yan when seeing a Penn Yan Express truck rolling down the road felt like seeing a piece of home.
The familiar trucks weren’t just hauling freight across the Northeast — they carried the pride of an entire community along with them.
Operating from 1949 to 1983, Penn Yan Express grew from small-town roots into one of the region’s best-known trucking companies. What started from humble beginnings through the Hinson family trucking business eventually expanded into a major less-than-truckload freight carrier serving communities throughout the Northeast.
And perhaps no quote captures that humble beginning better than this reflection from founder Robert Hinson:
“The minute I got my driver’s license,
I took off for Baltimore driving a tractor-trailer rig.
Not only had I never driven a truck.
I didn’t even know where Baltimore was.
Someone handed me a map and said get going.”
— Robert Hinson, 1941
Honestly, that feels very Keuka Roots somehow.
Because around Keuka Lake, there has always been this quiet courage woven into the hillsides and village streets. The kind of determination that says:
You may not know exactly where the road leads…
but you go anyway.
Penn Yan Express became part of that story.
For decades, the company provided jobs for countless local families. Drivers headed out before sunrise with thermoses of coffee riding shotgun. Mechanics worked long hours in garage bays. Dock workers loaded freight late into snowy winter nights. Dispatchers kept the wheels moving from offices buzzing with phones and paperwork.
And around here, almost everyone seemed connected to Penn Yan Express somehow.
Maybe your father drove truck.
Maybe your grandfather worked the docks.
Maybe your neighbor spent thirty years in maintenance.
Maybe you simply remember hearing those engines rumble through town.
Back then, companies like Penn Yan Express helped shape the heartbeat of small-town America.
The work was hard.
The hours were long.
But there was pride in it.
The trucks themselves became rolling symbols of home — traveling highways far beyond Yates County while carrying the Penn Yan name everywhere they went.
Like many trucking companies, however, the industry changed dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Deregulation, rising competition, and changing freight systems transformed transportation across America. In 1983, Penn Yan Express was purchased by Consolidated Freightways, and eventually the Penn Yan Express name faded from the roads.
But around Keuka?
People still remember.
Because places like Penn Yan never truly forget the businesses and people who helped build these communities.
That is part of what Keuka Roots is all about — preserving the stories behind the names painted on old buildings, factory walls, delivery trucks, storefront windows, and faded photographs tucked away in family albums.
The trucks may no longer roll out of Penn Yan.
But the stories still do.
And perhaps that is the beauty of small towns.
Long after businesses close and signs come down, the memories remain parked in the hearts of the people who lived them.
Stay Rooted. Stay Keuka.
For further history, photographs, and memories of Penn Yan Express, visit:
Penn Yan Express Historical Archive
