The Pickwick Corporation
The Pickwick Corporation was a California corporation that historically encompassed a number of related businesses, including the surviving Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco, California.
History[]
The company was named for the old Pickwick Theater in San Diego, a vaudeville house opened in 1905, into which it moved its offices.
Constituent companies[]
Pickwick Stage Lines[]
The Pickwick Stage Lines was one of the major bus companies incorporated into the Greyhound system in its formative years. Pickwick merged with Minnesota-based Northland Transportation in 1929 becoming Pickwick Greyhound.
Pickwick Motor Coach Works[]
Manufacturer of buses, including a unique sleeper coach called the "Nite Coach". Pickwick's coach factory was located in El Segundo, along what is now Aviation Blvd. just south of Imperial Blvd./Highway. In 1934, this factory was acquired by the Northrup Division of the Douglas Aircraft Co.[1], re-named the El Segundo Division of Douglas Aircraft after John Northrup left the Douglas Co. in 1937.[2] The building remained in use through World War II.
Pickwick Airways[]
Operated a fleet of Bach 3-CT-6 "air yachts", initially between San Diego and Los Angeles, subsequently between San Francisco and Los Angeles, with service eventually extending as far as Mexico City.
Pickwick Broadcasting[]
A network of radio stations in California, including KTAB in San Francisco (now KSFO), KNRC in Los Angeles, KTM (became KEHE, now KABC) in Santa Monica, and KGB (now KLSD) in San Diego.
Pickwick Hotels[]
The Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco opened on September 22, 1928 at Fifth and Mission near Union Square. The same building was utilized by the Pickwick Stage Lines as its San Francisco terminal. It was mentioned in the Dashiell Hammett mystery novel “The Maltese Falcon”. The hotel survives under different owners today.
The Pickwick Hotel in San Diego was opened in 1927. It was restored and re-named The Sofia Hotel in 2006.
The Pickwick Hotel in Los Angeles was located at 833 South Grand, adjacent to the Trinity Auditorium Building. The site of the hotel is now a modern parking garage with the address 801 South Grand.
Another Pickwick Hotel, built by the company itself in 1926, was located in Anaheim at 225 South Los Angeles (later Anaheim) Blvd. It was initially named the El Torre but was re-named Pickwick in 1929. It suffered some damage in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, but was repaired. It continued in use under new owners until it was demolished in 1988.[3][4]
A large Pickwick Hotel and bus terminal was built by the company and opened in Kansas City in 1930. It was restored in 2015 and re-opened as "East 9 at Pickwick Plaza" in 2016.[5]
Pickwick opened another hotel in Salt Lake City in 1930.[6]
References[]
- ^ Los Angeles Daily News, Volume 11, Number 129, 31 January 1934, p.7
- ^ The Douglas Aircraft Plant, That Became Los Angeles Air Force Base, Robert Mulcahy, 2012
- ^ Wikimapia
- ^ http://wikimapia.org/4328838/Pickwick-Hotel-site Calisphere photo with caption]
- ^ East 9 Pickwick Plaza website
- ^ Suburbanizing the Masses: Public Transport and Urban Development in Historical Perspective, by Colin Divall, Winstan Bond, 2017, at Google Books
External links[]
- Hotels in San Francisco
- Bus manufacturers of the United States
- Defunct airlines of the United States
- Defunct radio networks in the United States