The Pickwick Corporation

Prior firms, merged to the Pickwick Corporation, had used the Pickwick Theatre, as their departure point. The company was named for its office location, the 1904 San Diego Pickwick Theater, built by Louis J. Wilde, primarily for vaudeville but converted to movies in 1922 and demolished in 1926.{{cite web |title=View of Fourth Street looking north from D Street (Broadway?) in San Diego, ca.1900 |url=https://calisphere.org/item/0786c4013f5dd164628d6832e486811f/ |website=calisphere |access-date=19 June 2022 |date=1900}}{{cite web |title=Pickwick Theatre, San Diego, CA |url=https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/19143/ |website=Pacific Coast Architecture Database |access-date=19 June 2022}}{{cite web |title=Pickwick Theatre in San Diego, CA |url=http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/10749 |website=Cinema Treasures |access-date=19 June 2022}}{{cite book |title=The San Diego Tourist |date=1912 |publisher=A.E. Flowers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ctQAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Pickwick+Theatre%22&pg=PA57 |language=en}}

File:San Diego Official Time Tables Interurban Steamship Railroad (1915) (14760322352).jpg

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.

Manufacturer of buses, including a unique sleeper coach called the "Nite Coach".

• {{cite web |last1=Theobald |first1=Mark |date=2004 |title=Pickwick Motor Coach Works Part 1 |url=http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/p/pickwick/pickwick.htm |website=Coach Built |access-date=19 June 2022}}
• {{cite web |last1=Theobald |first1=Mark |date=2004 |title=Pickwick Motor Coach Works Part 2 |url=http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/p/pickwick/pickwick2.htm |website=Coach Built |access-date=19 June 2022}}

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.,[https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DNLA19340131.1.7&srpos=1&e=-------en--20-DNLA-1--txt-txIN-Pickwick+Motor+Coach+Works%2c+Ltd.-------1 Los Angeles Daily News, Volume 11, Number 129, 31 January 1934, p.7] re-named the El Segundo Division of Douglas Aircraft after John Northrup left the Douglas Co. in 1937.[https://www.losangeles.spaceforce.mil/ The Douglas Aircraft Plant, That Became Los Angeles Air Force Base, Robert Mulcahy, 2012] The building remained in use through World War II.

Pickwick Airways{{cite web |title=Pickwick Airways, Inc. |url=https://ghostsofwallstreet.com/products/pickwick-airways-inc |website=Ghosts of Wall Street |access-date=19 June 2022 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Pickwick Airways Inc. - Stock Certificate |url=https://www.glabarre.com/item/Pickwick_Airways_Inc_Stock_Certificate/15809/p5c39 |website=www.glabarre.com |access-date=19 June 2022}} 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. In 1929, Rena Vale was director of publicity.[https://www.proquest.com/docview/162347059 "Tri-Nation Service Starts; First Plane of Pickwick Latin-America Airways Given Send-Off in Colorful Pageant"], Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1929, page A-2[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106009839678&view=1up&seq=5&q1=Rena+Vale Un-American Activities in California], California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, 1943, pages 122–175 (hathitrust){{rp|123}} Gilpin Airlines emerged from the Depression-related failure of Pickwick Airways.

Pickwick Broadcasting{{cite web |last1=Hilliker |first1=Jim |title=LA Radio |url=https://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/beginning.htm |website=Broadcast History |access-date=19 June 2022 |quote=This is a review of the 87 AM radio stations that have operated in the greater Los Angeles area between 1921 and 1998.}} was a network of radio stations in California, including KTAB in San Francisco (now KZAC), KNRC in Los Angeles, KTM{{cite web |last1=Hilliker |first1=Jim |title=KGFJ - Los Angeles, The Original 24-Hour Radio Station |url=https://jeff560.tripod.com/kgfj.html |website=History of American Broadcasting |date=2014 |quote=QSL letter to a DXer in New Jersey from KTM-780 in Los Angeles that shows they were on the air at 3:00 a.m. in February of 1931}}{{cite book |author1=Radio Division |title=Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the U.S. |date=1930 |publisher=United States Dept of Commerce |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oD8tAQAAIAAJ&dq=KTM&pg=PA174 |language=en |quote=The Pickwick Broadcasting KTM 780}} (became KEHE,{{cite web |title=KELW Burbank |url=http://www.radioheritage.net/story36.asp |website=Radio Heritage Foundation |access-date=19 June 2022 |quote=By 1935, KTM had become KEHE, named after the Los Angeles Evening Herald Newspaper and was the Los Angeles station for Hearst Radio Inc, part of the Hearst media empire.}}{{cite web |last1=Mulrooney |first1=Christopher |title=Morgan, Walls & Clements: KEHE (KFI) Radio Building, 1936 |url=http://www.oocities.org/christophermulrooney/criteria/id74.html |website=Christopher Mulrooney |access-date=19 June 2022}} now KABC (AM)) in Santa Monica, and KGB (now KLSD) in San Diego.

File:Hotel Pickwick - San Francisco, CA - DSC08216.jpg

In 1926, a Pickwick Hotel, was built by the company itself, and 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.[http://wikimapia.org/4328838/Pickwick-Hotel-site Calisphere photo with caption] Wikimapia

In 1927, the Pickwick Terminal Hotel, opened in San Diego. It was restored and re-named The Sofia Hotel in 2006.

On 22 September 1928, the Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco opened 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.

In 1930, a large Pickwick Hotel and bus terminal was built by the company and opened in Kansas City. It was restored in 2015 and re-opened as "East 9 at Pickwick Plaza" in 2016.[http://east9kc.com/65m-pickwick-plaza-renovation-is-almost-ready-for-occupancy/ East 9 Pickwick Plaza website]

In 1930, Pickwick opened another hotel in Salt Lake City.[https://books.google.com/books?id=d3BQDwAAQBAJ&dq=Pickwick+Hotel+%22Salt+Lake+City%22&pg=PA274 Suburbanizing the Masses: Public Transport and Urban Development in Historical Perspective, by Colin Divall, Winstan Bond, 2017, at Google Books]

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.

{{reflist}}

• [https://bluehoundsandredhounds.info/?page_id=204 "Pickwick-Greyhound Lines" at Bluehounds and Redhounds]
• [https://pickwickhotel.com/the-hotel// Pickwick Hotel website]
• [http://www.theradiohistorian.org/pickwick.html The Radio Historian - The Pickwick Stage Company]
• [http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/p/pickwick/pickwick.htm Coachbuilt - Pickwick Motor Coach Works]
• [http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/10749 Cinema Treasures - The Pickwick Theater in San Diego]
• [http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-nitecoach-greyhound-bus-big-oh-yeah.html Just A Car Guy, Blogspot - Photos of Pickwick buses]
• [http://blogs.denverpost.com/library/2013/05/08/pickwick-nite-coach-to-denver/7801/ Denver Post blog -Pickwick; includes photos of nite coach]

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Category:Hotels in San Francisco

Category:Bus manufacturers of the United States

Category:Defunct airlines of the United States

Category:Defunct radio networks in the United States