Our History 

To better understand Bavarian Trucking, we must go back to the beginning.

In 1901, Ben Brueggemann founded Brueggemann Trucking Company, a horse-drawn freighting business in Covington, Kentucky. When Ben died during the influenza epidemic of 1918, Lawrence, his eldest son, was entrusted with continuing the family business.

Lawrence saw the transportation industry change from horse-drawn carts to trucks. After weathering the storms of the Great Depression and narrowly avoiding bankruptcy when the government contractors he worked with defaulted on their obligations to him, Lawrence reformed the family business and incorporated it as the “Bavarian Trucking Company” in 1934. At the time, Lawrence operated his company out of the old Bavarian Brewery buildings at 533 Pike Street in Covington, which had closed due to prohibition. Thus, Bavarian’s company name was inspired by a Northern Kentucky landmark.

Bavarian operated as a gravel and freight hauling company for much of the following two decades, but during the 1950’s, a need for residential and industrial waste disposal developed in the community. Recognizing this need and Bavarian’s existing excavating services expertise, Bavarian began a gradual progression from freight handling to waste disposal. In 1959, Bavarian officially entered the waste disposal business by modifying our trucks for trash hauling and establishing collection routes.

Lawrence retired in 1969 from the company he had led for fifty-one years and his son, Bernie Brueggemann, became Bavarian’s president. In 1973, Bernie led Bavarian to purchase our current 461-acre landfill site near Walton, Kentucky and began Bavarian’s modern era. Bernie guided Bavarian through the next twenty-nine years before he passed the company presidency to his own son, Jim Brueggemann in 1998. Jim continues to lead Bavarian today and is aided in this by his sons, much as his father and grandfather had been by theirs.

In 2003, Bavarian demonstrated our commitment to sustainable business practices and our status as an industry leader by becoming the first landfill in Kentucky to collect the methane gas produced by the landfill. We chose to pipe this gas to an on-site power plant which is owned and operated by East Kentucky Power Cooperative and, thus, became the first Kentucky landfill to turn the landfill’s methane gas into electricity! Thanks to Bavarian proving the feasibility of collecting the landfill’s methane for electric power, doing so is now the industry standard in Kentucky.

Bavarian proudly served all the waste disposal needs of both residential and commercial customers for sixty-four years until 2013 when Jim Brueggemann, Bernie’s son, recognized that modern residential waste collection services had left behind customer service in favor of depersonalized automation. Unwilling to compromise Bavarian’s famous personalized customer service, Jim decided to sell Bavarian’s residential waste collection services. However, in keeping with the Brueggemann family values, Bavarian still proudly offers rolloff dumpster and waste disposal services.

Although Bavarian has grown to offer our services throughout the tri-state area of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio; we have remained a family company, and are still guided by the same principles held by Ben Brueggemann back in 1901.

In 1901 a handshake between honorable men was as binding as any contract. Over 100 years later, that principle is preserved between Bavarian Trucking Company and our customers. We refuse to engage in the all-too-common “bait and switch” schemes of modern businesses. Instead, at Bavarian, we always offer our best price to each and every customer.

President Bernie Brueggemann, center, with his father and five sons.

Current President Jim Brueggemann, center, with his eight sons.