The Pickwick Corporation was a California corporation [1] that historically encompassed a number of related businesses, including the surviving Pickwick Hotel in San Francisco, California.
Prior firms, merged to the Pickwick Corporation, had used the Pickwick Theatre, as their departure point. [2] 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. [3] [4] [5] [6]
The Pickwick Stage Lines [2] 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". [2] 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., [7] re-named the El Segundo Division of Douglas Aircraft after John Northrup left the Douglas Co. in 1937. [8] The building remained in use through World War II.
Pickwick Airways [9] [10] 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. [11] [12] : 123 Gilpin Airlines emerged from the Depression-related failure of Pickwick Airways.
Pickwick Broadcasting [13] was a network of radio stations in California, including KTAB in San Francisco (now KSFO), KNRC in Los Angeles, KTM [14] [15] (became KEHE, [16] [17] now KABC (AM)) in Santa Monica, and KGB (now KLSD) in San Diego.
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. [18]
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. [19]
In 1930, Pickwick opened another hotel in Salt Lake City. [20]
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.
Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) was a low-cost US airline headquartered in San Diego, California, that operated from 1949 to 1988. It was the first substantial scheduled discount airline. PSA called itself "The World's Friendliest Airline" and painted a smile on the nose of its airplanes, the PSA Grinningbirds. The Los Angeles Times called PSA "practically the unofficial flag carrier airline of California for almost forty years."
Greyhound Lines, Inc. (Greyhound) operates the largest intercity bus service in North America. Services include Greyhound Mexico, charter bus services, and Amtrak Thruway services. Greyhound operates 1,700 coaches produced mainly by Motor Coach Industries and Prevost serving 230 stations and 1,700 destinations. The company's first route began in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1914 and the company adopted the Greyhound name in 1929. The company is owned by Flix North America, Inc., an affiliate of FlixBus, and is based in downtown Dallas.
Los Angeles Union Station is the main train station in Los Angeles, California, and the largest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States. It opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, replacing La Grande Station and Central Station.
Los Angeles has a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure, which serves as a regional, national and international hub for passenger and freight traffic. The system includes the United States' largest port complex; an extensive freight and passenger rail infrastructure, including light rail lines and rapid transit lines; numerous airports and bus lines; vehicle for hire companies; and an extensive freeway and road system. People in Los Angeles rely on cars as the dominant mode of transportation, but since 1990 the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has built over one hundred miles (160 km) of light and heavy rail serving more and more parts of Los Angeles and the greater area of Los Angeles County; Los Angeles was the last major city in the United States to get a permanent rail system installed.
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity.
Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West Coast Theatres chain. Fox West Coast went into bankruptcy and was sold to The National Theatres Corporation, led by Charles Skouras, on November 19, 1934, for $17,000,000.00. Eugene Klein later became CEO of National, and turned it into the conglomerate National General. Mann Theatres bought National General's theatres in 1973.
KLSD is a commercial radio station in San Diego, California, broadcasting a conservative talk radio format branded as "The Patriot." It is owned by iHeartMedia with studios on Granite Ridge Drive. Programming is also heard on FM translator K227DH at 103.3 MHz.
John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Coliseum, and City Hall.
Millard Owen Sheets was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale building-mounted mosaics from the mid-20th century are still extant in Southern California. His paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum.
Lake Tahoe Airport is a public airport three miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, in El Dorado County, California. It covers 348 acres (141 ha) and has one runway; it is sometimes called Tahoe Valley Airport. Although the airport had almost forty years of airline service, since 2000, it has served only general aviation.
California's transportation system is complex and dynamic. Although known for its car culture and extensive network of freeways and roads, the state also has a vast array of rail, sea, and air transport. Several subway, light rail, and commuter rail networks are found in many of the state's largest population centers. In addition, with the state's location on the West Coast of the United States, several important ports in California handle freight shipments from the Pacific Rim and beyond. A number of airports are also spread out across the state, ranging from small general aviation airports to large international hubs like Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport.
Bishop Alemany High School is a Roman Catholic secondary school located in the San Fernando Valley community of Mission Hills in Los Angeles, California. It is within the San Fernando Pastoral Region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The school is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Originally known as the Indians, the school later changed their mascot to the Warriors.
BoltBus was an intercity bus common carrier and a division of Greyhound Lines that operated from March 2008 until July 2021 in the northeast and western United States and British Columbia, Canada.
Florence Chambers, known by her married name Florence Newkirk by May 1964, was an American competition swimmer who competed in the 100-meter backstroke for the United States at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, finishing fourth in the finals. She was a successful swim coach and instructor who started the Florence Chambers Swim Club in the mid-1920's, and later became a leading business woman, community leader, and philanthropist in San Diego County.
Gilpin Airlines, formally re-incorporated in 1932 as G & G Gilpin Air Lines Company was an air charter and airline company operated in California, Arizona, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California from 1929 to 1934. A residual of the company persisted in Arizona as a flight school and charter business, operating out of Gilpin Field in Tucson, Arizona for several years. The airline is notable for its ownership by Arizona pioneer and politician Isabella Greenway, and for its involvement with trans-border traffic during the days of Prohibition.
M. Eugene Durfee (1885-1941) was an American architect prominent in Orange County, California.
This is a review of the 87 AM radio stations that have operated in the greater Los Angeles area between 1921 and 1998.
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
The Pickwick Broadcasting KTM 780
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.