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Trailer Bridge

American freight service company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ7832790
Source-derived summary

Trailer Bridge, Inc. is a freight service company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. They offer international and domestic shipping with primary international calls to San Juan, Puerto Rico and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

History

Trailer Bridge was founded in 1991 by Malcom McLean, who is recognized in the industry as "The Father of Containerization". McLean had previously started McLean Trucking Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which he built into one of the largest trucking companies in the United States. He saw the need for a service that could, in the words of the company, provide "true single-carrier responsibility across the United States and on to Puerto Rico". In April 1991, McLean founded Trailer Bridge, and in the following February, Trailer Bridge made its first shipment from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1997, Trailer Bridge went public on NASDAQ and moved its headquarters to Jacksonville. Over the years, it expanded its fleet and capacity, and in 2000, it unveiled its shipment tracking tool. In 2004, Trailer Bridge purchased all of Kadampanattu Corporation's stock, thus gaining two 736-foot, triple-deck, ro/ro barges.

Editorial summary

“Trailer Bridge” enters the record as american freight service company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Trailer, Bridge and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1991, 1997, 2000, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1991. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Trailer, Bridge and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Trailer Bridge” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Trailer, Bridge and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7832790. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1997, 2000 and 2004.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Trailer Bridge”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Trailer Bridge primary sources, Trailer Bridge archive and Trailer research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Trailer Bridge”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Trailer Bridge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.