1330 to 1918: The Beginnings

1473: The Milan Messenger Service, which was operated on behalf of the town of Lindau by the families Spheler and Vis (Weiss) in Fussach becomes a regular institution after the extension of the old road through the Via Mala Gorge. This led from Lindau via Fussach and Chur, via the 2100 metre high Splügenpass to Comersee and on to Milan.

1592: On 10 June, after 31 years of legal proceedings against the Reichspost of the Thurn and Taxis, the Milan senate decides that the Messenger Service may be continued.

1781: The Milan Messenger Johann Kasimir Weiss becomes a partner at the trading post in Fussach which is used for temporary storage and monitoring messenger services. The company branches out to provide transport services to the Vorarlberg textile industry.

1788: Returning from his first journey to Italy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is brought safely to Fussach on 2 June by the Milan Messenger Service. Goethe writes in his diary that he pays a fare of 122 gulden for himself and his companion Kayser.

1823: Josef Weiss is sole owner of the trading post. Together with his half brothers, Leonhard and Hohann Alois Karl Weiss, he continues to trade under a new name: Spedition Gebrüder Weiss. Three years later, the messenger service to Milan is nationalised.

1872: On 1 July - with the opening of the railway line from Bregenz to Bludenz - company headquarters are relocated from Fussach to Bregenz. From 1884 - with the completion of the Arlberg tunnel - a direct railway link is extended as far Vienna and across the Brenner pass to Venice.

Up to 1914: Gebrüder Weiss establishes branches throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire - in Vienna, Triest and Genoa as well as in Lindau and Switzerland in Buchs, St. Margrethen and Romanshorn.