Longtime Utah operator Lewis Stages suddenly closes

PARK CITY, Utah – All Resort Group Inc., a large, long-established Park City transportation firm that included Lewis Stages, is out of business.

The company, which also operated All Resort Express and Park City Transportation, had filed for bankruptcy in the spring but was expected to remain in business. Instead, it shut down suddenly last month.

Gordon Cummins, a minority owner of All Resort Group and the firm’s vice president, told the Park Record that the closure affected several hundred employees, including drivers and office workers.

“We’re deeply disappointed and we feel for our employees. We wish our employees well,” Cummins said.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April, listing between $10 million and $50 million in estimated assets and an equal amount of liabilities owed to between 200 and 999 creditors, including a leasing firm, a Las Vegas touring firm and an Ohio petroleum company.

A Phoenix investment group had been expected to acquire All Resort but backed out recently. Cummins told the Park Record that he was hoping another firm would acquire the company’s airport service.

The bankruptcy apparently stemmed from the company owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney bills tied to lawsuits and was filed despite All Resort experiencing its strongest first quarter in four years.

The company got its start in 1913 when mining was big business in the mountains near Salt Lake City. Miners, most of them immigrants, enjoyed traveling to the city to blow off steam when they had time off.

Fourteen-year-old Orson Lewis recognized an opportunity and bought a Model-T Ford touring car to haul the miners to town.

The company, Lewis Bros. Stages, grew over the years to include modern motorcoaches, school buses and other vehicles offering line runs, tours, charters and student transportation.

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