Manufacturers: Warwick China, McNicol China
Disproven User: Fred Harvey
Actual User: Ford Hopkins Drug Stores and Tea Rooms
Pattern name: Southwest (as known within the railroad/railroad-adjacent dining car china community)
Date of Warwick examples: 1934, 1935
Date of McNicol bowl: 1931-1960s
Date of McNicol grill plate: 1931-1940s
Notes: This FH logo placed within concentric circles has been named "Southwest" and associated with Fred Harvey for many decades – and officially since at least 1983 with the publication of "Dining on Rails," by Richard Luckin. But as Luckin wrote recently, "When I originally published 'Dining on Rails,' … the information in the book was based on what I knew at the time. As we all know as the years pass, we discover some facts we thought were true are not!"
A story had made the rounds casting doubt on this pattern's connection to Fred Harvey because Stan Skoczen, with Syracuse China, had said in his opinion the pattern was not Harvey related. What information Syracuse had, he said, was filed under "F," indicating this would have been the first word of the customer's name. However, all Harvey patterns were filed under "H." We at the RWCN followed up on this with a request for research by the Onondaga Historical Association. After an intensive search, they were unable to find any record or reference to this pattern at all in their records and order books, whether filed under "F" or H."
So it is that for at least several years the ID for Southwest has been questioned within restaurant china- and railroad-related online groups. A little digging in 2023 turned up several examples of the matching logo and the true ID for Southwest, ironically for a business located specifically in the Midwest: Ford Hopkins Drug Stores and Tea Rooms.
The evidence is irrefutable. As shown in photos above, Ford Hopkins used the same italic, sans serif font style over and over in its advertising, used the exact same FH logo on some of its branded products, and there is even a sliver of the logo visible on a plate in one of its menus, tantalizingly tucked away beneath a serving of crinkle-cut fries.
Stories online about the Ford Hopkins chain of drugstores typically say the business began in the early 1930s with 300 locations in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana, but our research shows an ad from 1928 for the Dixon, Illinois, store and an ad from 1934 for a store opening in Wisconsin. Therefore, it can be said that the company started at least as early as 1928 with stores in at least four states in the Midwest.
A circa 1940 menu for Ford Hopkins Tea Room (that includes the FH logo within a circle, shown above) also includes Wisconsin as well as Minnesota among its "FORD HOPKINSland" holdings, "the heart of the Middlewest."
By 1954, according to numerous newspaper stories, the company had been sold to General Stores Corporation with Ford Hopkins Co. defined as an independent drug store chain in which General Stores owned 100% stock interest.
Stineway was also part of this acquisition by General Stores, according to a story in the January 19, 1972, Albuquerque Tribune in which the business was referred to as "Stineway-Ford Hopkins of Chicago, which either owns or services 460 drug stores," five of which were in Albuquerque, N.M., an example of the chain's further expansion.
Two years later, in 1974, Stineway and Ford Hopkins were sold to Inland Mercantile Cop. (March 15, 1974, Chicago Tribune)
A column by George Lazarus in the June 16, 1975, issue of the Chicago Tribune, begins: "Financially troubled Ford Hopkins Co., the diversified drug wholesaler, may soon have a new owner – its third in three years."
"Lag Drug Co., the leading drug wholesaler in the Midwest, has agreed to acquire Ford Hopkins, this column learned.
"Ford Hopkins recently filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Act owing creditors more than $2.5 million."
White body with black and rusty orange red border, topmarked "FH" in a rusty orange red colored circle, surrounded by two rusty orange red lines — one bolder than the other. (Color variations seem to vary between items manufactured by Warwick and McNicol, hence the sketchy "rusty orange red" descriptions.)
Sources:
"The Official Guide to Railroad Dining Car China," by Douglas McIntyre
"Dining on Rails," by Richard Luckin
Railroad Dining Car Collectors Silver and China Facebook group
McDonough County VOICE
Western Illinois University Digital Image Collection
Keokuk, Iowa Historians
Albuquerque Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Dixon (Illinois) Evening Telegraph
Iowa Press-Citizen
Globe-Gazette (Mason City, Iowa)
Green Bay Press Gazette
Onondaga Historical Association
For more info:
Southwest – (not Fred Harvey), by Warwick and McNicol
Contributors:
Ed Babcock
Creamer photos: Carol Cardona
Bowl photos, research: Susan Phillips
ID/research: Rodric Coslet
ID/research: Roger Hoffmann
ID/research: Roland Burritt