Nickerson -- Picnic Filming Locations in Nickerson, Kansas

Picnic's Filming Locations:

NICKERSON

Nickerson, Kansas: (65 miles Northwest of Wichita); The Owens’s house is located in Nickerson, right across the street from the school: (June 4 - 16, 1955); 12 days of shooting;

June 4 - 16, 1955; 12 days of shooting; production moved on to Nickerson using the homes of Mildred McFarland and E. L. Beauchamp for exteriors; A third home, belonging to Guy Houston, was used for kitchen interiors.The Owens’s house is located in Nickerson, right across the street from the school:

June 9, 1955: the crew utilized a helicopter to film the final shot of Picnic.

June 16, 1955: The cast and crew threw a "wrap" party on the stage of Hutchinson's Fox Theatre.

211 S. Nickerson Street, Nickerson, Kansas (on HW 96):

A: Where Madge finally leaves her mother and gets on the bus for Tulsa;
A & B: Where the two adjacent houses where The Ownen's family live, with Mrs. Potts next door;
A & B & E: Where all the Owen's house shots were filmed;
C: Where the production crew used a train engine and ten railcars to augment Holden’s arrival and departure scenes;
D: Where Reno Community High School was filmed (now called "Nickerson High" at 305 S. Nickerson, Nickerson, KS); (can be seen directly across the street from the Owen's House in many shots);
E: Where Hal walks down an alley (with a grain elevator in the background) to Mrs. Potts backyard (see YELLOW arrow in the 5th map below to see the direction down the alley that Hal walked, with grain tower C in the background)
F: Intersection of W Ave H and Kent Street: Aerial bus shot started from this location. Use Google 3D and by using the "Ctrl" key, you can manipulate the 3D Aerial view to trace out the exact path used in the movie.

Tidbits:

211 South Nickerson Street – Owen's Family House
207 South Nickerson Street – Mrs. Potts’s House
305 South Nickerson Street – The School

View from Highway 92, on the side of the Owen's house.. Google street view... here (side of house);

There were two real parallel train tracks that were shot in the movie in Nickerson, at the end of the alley behind the Owen’s house. Various movie shots verify that the tracks were real, such as a train crossing at HW 96 and W Avenue G. The train tracks were later removed. Scars from the old tracks can still be seen from satellite shots of the area.

The film's last clip, the helecopter shot, was filmed by Haskell Wexler, James Wong Howe’s assistant.

Bus & Aerial Scenes:

Owen House: The bus stops on W Ave H just past the S Nickerson intersection, in the northwest direction. Madge boards the bus.

Helicopter Aerial: The helicopter aerial bus scene started W Ave H just (northwest direction) at the Kent Street intersection, just 4 blocks just down the road from the Owen’s house. There the bus proceeds northwest along W Ave H, passes Severy Street and continues in the direction where the road turns to the right and becomes northbound as the camera pans to the distance and the train can be viewed in the distance. The final couple of seconds of the film shows the train getting ready to curve into the main railway. The train was on the old set of tracks that have since been removed.