Great Lakes nations maintain coast guard vessels in the Great Lakes. During settlement, the Great Lakes and its rivers were the only practical means of moving people and freight. Barges from middle North America were able to reach the Atlantic Ocean from the Great Lakes when the Welland canal opened in 1824 and the later Erie Canal opened in 1825. By 1848, with the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal at Chicago, direct access to the Mississippi River was possible from the lakes. With these two canals an all-inland water route was provided between New York City and New Orleans. The
Great Lakes Greyhound Lines new subsidiary, named as the Great Lakes Greyhound Lines, which in 1941 took over the EMM. In 1941, when the Great Lakes GL came into existence, The Greyhound Corporation merged the Ohio GL into the new Great Lakes GL. The Ohio GL had run between Detroit and Louisville (in Kentucky) via Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati (all three in Ohio), plus along a detached route between Evansville and Indianapolis (both in Indiana). [The route segment between Louisville and Cincinnati had come from the Southland Transportation Company, which Harris Spearin, with the backing and financing of Wickman in Minnesota, had founded in