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In 1946, Radio & Television Equipment Company, AKA Radio-Tel, became the exclusive distributor for K&F Research, which would change its name to the Fender Electric Instrument Co in 1947. Located at 207 Oak, Radio-Tel was owned by Francis C Hall, who would achieve fame as owner of Rickenbacker. Radio-Tel’s General Manager was another future music legend, Fender marketing guru Don Randall.

Returning home from World War II, Francis C. Hall opened Radio and Television Equipment Company, known as Radio-Tel, at 207 Oak Street in Santa Ana to sell components for the manufacture of radios. In 1946, he noticed that one of his regular customers, a man named Leo Fender, was increasing his purchase of specialized tubes and other electronics.

Francis asked Leo what he was working on, and Leo told him that his company, K&F Manufacturing Corporation, was building new electric lap steel guitars and amplifiers. Francis offered to distribute Leo’s instruments, and a year later, when Leo renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company, Radio-Tel became the world’s first exclusive Fender distributor, shipping Fender’s new Esquire and two-pickup Broadcaster (1950) guitars, renamed the Telecaster in 1951, Precision bass (1951) and amplifiers to music stores and musicians  across the country.

Radio-Tel’s General Manager at the time, a man named Don Randall, also saw the revolutionary potential of Fender’s instruments. Randall helped create the marketing mystique that launched the Fender brand as one of the pre-eminent manufacturers that transformed popular music across the globe in the 1950s. In fact, it was Don Randall who named the Esquire, Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars.

When Leo Fender needed to expand his manufacturing operations, Francis C. Hall loaned him the money to open a new factory in Fullerton.

The partnership between Fender and Hall launched Fender instruments as a national phenomenon. Seeing the future of electric guitars and basses, Francis bought a musical instrument manufacturer called the Electro String company in 1953 from a man named Adolph Rickenbacker, and renamed it the Rickenbacker Instrument Company.

In light of this potential competition, Leo Fender decided to form his own in-house distribution company in Santa Ana, Fender Sales, Inc., and installed Don Randall as President. Francis C. Hall would depart the Fender partnership, and Radio-Tel would focus on distributing Rickenbacker instruments. Hall moved the Rickenbacker factory from Los Angeles to Santa Ana in 1964, where it remains to this day.

While Francis C. Hall and Leo Fender would part ways as business partners, it is exciting to know that the histories of two of the world’s most influential and iconic musical instrument brands are both connected to Santa Ana’s Pacific Park neighborhood.

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Photos from the Orange County Archives