User:Killiondude/Pickwick Hotel (Anaheim, California)

The Pickwick Hotel was a historic hotel in Anaheim, CA and one of the last standing historic buildings in the original 200-acre downtown Anaheim area.

The hotel was constructed in 1926 across the street from City Hall and contained 49 guest rooms. With a four-story tower built in Mission Revival style, the hotel had a large lobby and once housed the city's "social elite". This large lobby was able to accommodate the hotel's additional use as a bus station, complete with covered platform. In its later years, it was the last bus station located within the city. However, once the bus terminal was closed in the mid 60s, the hotel began to fall into disrepair. In its final years, the hotel was known to house transients, drug dealers, and prostitutes. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

In 1983, the City of Anaheim began proceedings using eminent domain to purchase the hotel from its then-current owners, Herma and Frank A. Dusek in order to redevelop the area. The Duseks fought a legal battle to protect their property from government seizure and rejected the $1.1 million offer given by the city. After four years in legal disputes, the city and the Duseks agreed upon a selling price of $1.87 million with the city's intentions of demolishing the building in order for new construction to take place. About a dozen business and 60 people were forced to relocate from the premises, some of the residents having lived there for many years. The City of Anaheim paid for the businesses to relocate and gave each long-term resident of the hotel $4,000. In 1988 items from the building that could be salvaged were removed and the hotel was demolished.