The Rent-a-Car Company was founded in Chicago in 1918 and taken over by John Hertz, who renamed it after himself, in 1923. General Motors bought it from him in 1926 and expanded it to a national system. The railroads were at first wary of it as a potential competitor, but this 1948 brochure shows that they soon advertised it as the solution to what is today called the last-mile problem.
Click image to download a 3.7-MB PDF of this brochure.
The entire back of this 12″x18″ brochure is devoted to a list of cities where people could rent cars from Hertz or another rental company and the rates in those cities. Rates ranged from $3 to $7.50 per day plus 6 to 12 cents per mile. Multiply by 10 to get today’s values.