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When Chet Thomas came to St. Louis with his young wife, he wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision. Then their house was burglarized. They left within a year. It would be several years before he could be persuaded to return.

When he did, Thomas was given the task of turning KXOK into a profitable enterprise. The year was 1942, many men were going off to war, and business owners had to stretch their remaining employees. Chet Thomas was to be program director of KXOK Tuesday through Friday and then travel to Columbia, Mo., to spend Saturday through Monday overseeing the parent company’s station there, KFRU.

The pressure and stress proved too much. The medical diagnosis was rheumatic fever. A too short bed rest was agreed to and it was back to work. Chet Thomas had always known Elzey Roberts had high expectations. Roberts, the publisher of the St. Louis Star-Times, was his boss because the newspaper owned both of the radio stations.

Thomas was able to develop income and to hit budget, even during the war years. He was eventually made general manager of KXOK in 1942 and finally was relieved of his management responsibilities in Columbia in 1945.

In the late ‘40s, rumors began to swirl through the Star-Times Building. As Thomas wrote in his autobiography “Chet: Radio Pioneer,” “In early June of 1951, most of us knew that something momentous was about to happen…Late in the afternoon of June 14, 1951, Mr. Roberts’ secretary called and said Mr. Roberts wanted to see me…He had sold the Star-Times to the Post-Dispatch.”

But the radio stations were not part of the deal, and Thomas learned he was being made a vice president of the corporation, renamed the 800 North Twelfth Corporation, and appointed to serve on the board of directors.

And the changes continued. Elzey Roberts told of his plans to sell the station. The new owners were to be Roberts’ son, Elzey Jr., and Thomas. But there was a problem. Chet Thomas didn’t have enough money to buy his share. The senior Roberts reminded Thomas of some stock purchases he’d made as an employee over the years. Elzey Sr,. would buy the stock back so he could use the money for the purchase of the stations.

Thomas knew he still wouldn’t have enough money, so his boss made out a check for what was called “a substantial bonus,” and the deal was sealed. Next came an expansion of sorts and a move of the studios. Co-owner Elzey Jr., found a fixer-upper property in a residential neighborhood on North Kingshighway. An architect and contractor were hired, and Radio Park was born. When the work was finished, the station announced a Sunday open house for listeners. Twelve thousand people showed up.

Things went well for Roberts and Thomas. KXOK was financially successful, using many external promotions to create visibility in the community. But most of the advertising dollars were still going into newspapers, and television continued to expand in the St. Louis market. Elzey Roberts Jr., was getting antsy, and it was obvious his heart was not in the radio business. When he was approached by a potential buyer, he was anxious to talk.

The talks reportedly went well. By the time the sale of KXOK to Storz Radio was completed on December 14, 1960, the two men split the purchase price that ran into seven figures – not a bad payoff for a guy who, less than 10 years earlier, had not had enough money to purchase his share in KXOK.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 03/09).

The life of a staff announcer in local radio in the 1940s was not exactly filled with thrills and excitement. But Ralph Hansen remembers one day, even though it occurred over 60 years ago.

Hansen had grown up in Wisconsin, going to school in West Bend, north of Milwaukee. One day a group of students was taken on a tour of a local radio station and the hook was set for Hansen. Later, as a student at Northwestern University’s downtown Chicago campus, he applied for the job of page at WMAQ, NBC’s huge operation in the Mart Building. As a page, he was able to attend classes run by the network to train future announcers, and when that training was finished, the network helped place the successful students in radio jobs. Ralph Hansen ended up at WALA in Mobile, Alabama.

And he ended up in St. Louis because of a woman. She’d caught his eye in Alabama, but as a student at Stephens College in Central Missouri, she wouldn’t be spending much time in Mobile. Hansen auditioned at KSD in St. Louis for Frank Eschen, the station’s news director, and was given the job of staff announcer. He was 20 years old, and today, he says he has no idea what happened to that girl.

Working at KSD in the late 1930s and early 1940s was a pretty good gig. The station was owned by the Pulitzers, who also owned the Post-Dispatch. The company’s building was on the northeast corner of 12th and Olive, and they’d put a separate entrance on the Olive Street side of the building for the radio station. KSD was a strong union shop, with engineers who belonged to IBEW and announcers who were members of AFRA.

Eschen saw some possibilities in the youngster, but Hansen’s announcing needed some refining, so Eschen would take the young man upstairs into the observation booth overlooking the studios. There Eschen would have Ralph read copy while the news director would critique his work. Hansen soon scored a slot as the regular staff announcer for Russ David’s “Alpen Brau” program. But there were additional duties, and it wasn’t exactly a glamorous job. A schedule would be posted each week outlining the shifts of the announcers, and often, their only duty would be to sit in the studio during network feeds and voice the live station identification at the hour and half-hour.

This was the sort of shift that brought Ralph Hansen to the KSD studios one early December Sunday in 1941. He and the engineer were the only two people there. At 1:00, the NBC “Chicago Round Table” program began, and Hansen left the studio and wandered into the deserted newsroom. He was bored, so he was looking around for something to occupy himself when one of the wire service machines began a loud ringing sound, the signal that something of great importance was being transmitted. Hansen rushed to the machine and tore off the copy. As he read it, he inadvertently blurted out “Oh, my God!” and went running into the control room to tell the engineer he had to break into the NBC feed. Then dashing into the studio, Hansen gave the signal and blurted into the open microphone the news that the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

The engineer rejoined “Chicago Round Table” and Hansen went back into the newsroom to see if any more information had come in. A few minutes later, the flash bulletin containing the same information interrupted the program again, but this time the news came from the network. Here in St. Louis, a 20 year-old staff announcer had scooped the network by several minutes and, in the process, had also beaten all the other local stations in getting the news on the air.

The rest of Hansen’s day was anti-climactic. He finished his shift and went home to his apartment. Soon afterward he would join the armed forces, returning to KSD in 1946 to take up the position of staff announcer again. When the Post-Dispatch went on the air with KSD-TV on February 8, 1947, Hansen made the transition and never returned to radio.

(Reprinted with permission of the St.Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 3/w2004.)

Station KSD, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch [station], can truthfully be said to have put St. Louis on the radio map.

It was the first broadcasting station in the United States to be authorized to transmit on a wave length of 400 meters. Since then 24 other stations of this class have been licensed and in addition there are nearly 600 stations of smaller capacity. By right of priority Station KSD is entitled to rank as a pioneer in the broadcasting field, and today there is no more powerful privately owned station in the United States, for KSD in transmitting its daily market reports and its nightly concerts is using the maximum of power which the government permits to be used in broadcasting.

It is a station of the first class of which St. Louis is proud, for it is doubtful if any other agency has been, or ever could be so effective in spreading the fame and good name of St. Louis in far away places. This is national and international advertising the cost of which through any other medium would stagger the imagination.
Through Station KSD the name of St. Louis has been carried into every city and town and practically every village and hamlet in the 48 states of the Union. It was the first broadcasting station to be heard in the period of a single night in all the 48 states and by ships on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It has carried the name of St. Louis into all the provinces of Canada and into Alaska, Cuba, Mexico, Porto (sic) Rico, Guadaloupe, Bermuda, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.

At the time of this writing the KSD long distance record of transmission is 4008 miles. This record was made when a midnight concert sent out from the station was heard on Akun Island of the Aleutian Island group off the Alaskan coast the night of Jan. 1 of this year. The island of Akun is one of the world’s lonely spots, given over mainly to sulphur mining. It is 2068 miles northwest of San Francisco, 1700 miles from Seattle and on almost the same longitude line as the eastern coast of Asia.

Even more startling, because of the greater difficulty in reaching the warm countries to the south by radio, was the establishing of KSD’s farthest south record the night of Jan. 25 when a program broadcast from this station was heard on a ship in the Pacific Ocean 2000 miles off the coast of Peru, 840 miles south of the equator and 3744 miles south of St. Louis.

The station’s daylight transmission record to the time of this writing was made when its broadcasting of market reports was heard in West Brookfield, Mass., approximately 1000 miles from the sending instrument. This is considered remarkable in view of the known fact that radio transmission never carries as far in the daytime as at night.

It is in this daylight transmission that KSD performs a service of the greatest practical value which would amply justify its existence even if it did not supplement this service by providing nightly entertainment and instruction for many thousands of listeners in on its concerts.

Those who think of a broadcasting station merely as a disseminator of music and addresses to beguile the hours between dinner and bedtime have only a very inadequate concept of its scope and usefulness. The Post-Dispatch radio station might almost be called a “radio newspaper.” It is “on the air” by day as well as by night. Market information of every kind of interest to the great Mississippi Valley is broadcast hourly. In hundreds of towns this information is received in banks, mills, stores and public schools and posted on bulletin boards for the information of the local public. In many cases the market quotations received by radio are relayed on local telephone lines. At each hour of transmission general news items are also broadcast.

The extent, quality and value of the daylight market service was strikingly shown in the first of January this year when the United States Department of Agriculture made a survey and invited letters from those interested in market reports as to the value of the market broadcasting service given by the radio stations. An official tabulation of the returns from a large section of the east and middle west showed that in 60 percent of the letters in which the writers referred to specific stations, the station which they named was KSD. There was a great preponderance of opinion that the broadcasting service was of the highest value to farmers and merchants in all parts of the country.

An idea of the extensiveness of this service can be had by consulting the following schedule of KSD daily broadcasting: 9:40 a.m. Opening St. Louis grain quotations. Liverpool first cables on wheat. Estimated receipts of livestock and opening hog markets of National Stockyards, Ill., and Chicago. 10:40 a.m. St. Louis future grain quotations. Liverpool second cables on wheat. Receipts and shipments of grain by cars in St. Louis. Midsession livestock market report from National Stockyards, Ill. New York opening cotton market. New York opening stock and bond markets. Liverpool opening cotton quotations. Weather forecasts for St. Louis and vicinity, Illinois, Iowa and shippers’ forecast. River forecasts and stages. 11:40 a.m. St. Louis future grain quotations. Liverpool closing cables on wheat. St. Louis hay market quotations. 12:40 p.m. St. Louis future grain quotations. Poultry, egg and butter market quotations. Weather forecasts for St. Louis, Illinois, Iowa. River forecasts and stages. 1:40 p.m. St. Louis closing future grain prices. Closing prices on cash grain, horses and mules. 2:40 p.m. Closing livestock report from National Stockyards, Ill. 4:00 p.m. New York closing quotations on cotton. New York closing stock exchange. Information Bulletins from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Agriculture. New York metal quotations.

The usefulness of KSD in the public service does not end with the going down of the sun. Its nightly programs have been a delight to a whole continent. For entertainment quality alone they are entitled to the first rank. This station, unlike some others, has not confined itself to jazz programs and the lighter forms of music. While not overlooking the diversional (sic) value of such music, which at times it presents in its best accepted form, Station KSD has aimed for the predominance of high class music interpreted by the best performers available. In this way it is doing its full share in the effort to disseminate a taste for good music. Its broadcasting of the Saturday night concerts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is a weekly event that is looked forward to in thousands of homes scattered throughout the United States. Last season it broadcasted the Municipal Opera in Forest Park and it is planning to repeat this in the coming summer season. A notable event was its broadcasting of the entire operas Aida and Cavalleria Rusticana from the Odeon when the San Carlo Opera Company sang there in January.

The broadcasting of the midnight Mass from the Old Cathedral last Christmas Day, lasting two hours, was the station’s greatest achievement in musical transmission. All over the country it was hailed as the most perfect and most inspiring offering of its kind ever sent out over the radio.

High class concerts by bands and orchestras, oratorios and numbers by noted choral clubs and choirs are a frequent source of delight to this station’s great and far-flung audience.

The spirit of service to the public is always apparent in the evening programs. An instance in point was the tremendously valuable aid given by Station KSD in the recent bond issue campaign in St. Louis. Each week the program included addresses by some prominent citizen or official in favor of one or more of the 21 propositions to be voted on. The ground was thoroughly covered, and there can be no doubt that the vigorous campaign made by KSD over the radio played no small part in the success of the bond issue propositions, as a result of which St. Louis will expend $87,000,000 on public improvements.

The programs also have included a series of popular lectures by members of the St. Louis Medical Society and addresses by St. Louisans on the attractions of the city, as a convention city on the superiority and attractiveness of its playgrounds, parks, art museum and zoo. There also have been popular science talks by noted authorities and addresses by distinguished visitors to the city.

The mail is a great index to the usefulness of any business or nay service. Though the station asks for letters only from those at a long distance, every mail brings letters of appreciation for the great work done by the station in service and entertainment. Just to give an idea of the range of this correspondence it may be said that the station’s mail each week will show letters from every state in the Union, that the daily programs of the station are now printed – at least in condensed form – in newspapers in 82 cities, and that letters of appreciation have been received from almost every city and town of 5000 or more in the United States and Canada and thousands of towns have been heard from. For instance, every city, town and hamlet which appears on the map of New Jersey is represented in the mail KSD has received; 180 different cities and towns in Pennsylvania, 78 in Massachusetts and more than 100 cities in California have listeners-in who have written to KSD to say in effect: “Great work; Keep it up!”
Originally published in Greater St. Louis magazine March 1923)

by Frank Eschen

Where were you on the night of June 26, 1922? If you were one of the patient band of pioneer radio listeners and had your ears clamped to your crystal set, tuned to 360 meters, you heard a pleasant, melodious voice saying: “This is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch opening its new broadcasting station, KSD.” The voice belonged to Mrs. Jones Campbell, who was then Miss V.A.L. Jones, the station’s first announcer, program director, script writer and general staff. It was a hot, stuffy night. The small studio had been thoroughly sound-proofed. The engineer who did the job completely forgot about anything as important as air and the performers and the staff were dripping with perspiration. When F.W.A. Vesper concluded his talk, he stepped back from the mike and became entangled in its long cord. At that moment, Mayor Henry Kiel, wandering through the steaming orchestra, wound himself up in the wire attached to Miss Jones’ head-set and the history-making broadcast almost came to an undignified and confused end, then and there. The orchestra for this KSD curtain raiser was a group of itinerant musicians recruited from Hotel Statler and under the direction of one Seth Abergh. Piano soloist was Paul Friess, organist at St. Michael’s and St. George’s Church and now head of the music department of Lindenwood College, St. Charles. Also featured were Arne Arneson, violinist, and Raymond Koch, baritone, accompanied by Esmerelda Berry Mayes. Among the principal speakers was Herbert A. Trask, an editorial executive of the Post-Dispatch, to whom Editor Joseph Pulitzer had given the assignment of running the station.

There was one, and only one, of everything when KSD first took to the air. One piece of transmitting equipment, one piano, one microphone (so precious that it was locked up when not in use), one engineer and one announcer, Miss Jones, who had been hired by O.K. Bovard, former managing editor, to be KSD’s impresario. She soon discovered that title covered everything around a radio shop but sweeping out the studio. In these days when every personality is thoroughly identified, it seems strange that early-day announcers were forbidden to mention their names in connection with any program. Miss Jones was possessed of a melodious voice, somewhat deeper in pitch than that of the average woman. Numerous fan letters came with every mail, and some time after this mysterious anonymity had been going on, an enthusiastic listener wrote to the editor of the Post-Dispatch: “Please tell me the name of your announcer. If it’s a lady, she has a nice voice. If it’s a man, he’s a damn sissy.” This eventually led to a change of policy and thereafter KSD’s one and only announcer identified herself at sign-off with…“Miss Jones announcing. This is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Station, KSD, signing off.”

Some of her loyal fans carried their admiration to the point of sending various gifts, ranging from a box of cigars to a handsome piece of jewelry, which she promptly returned. Also, during the course of her five years on KSD, Miss Jones received many offers of matrimony through the mails. All of these she likewise rejected, especially the ones received after she had become Mrs. Campbell.

When KSD was ready to go on the air, somebody in the Post-Dispatch office recalled that a license was needed. Charles G. Ross, then head of the Washington bureau, now press secretary to President Truman, called on Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and explained what he wanted. “What wave length?” asked Hoover. Ross didn’t know. He dispatched a wire to his office. Nobody there knew. The proprietor of an electrical store down the street was hastily consulted, his advice taken and Ross simply filled out a small blank and KSD was in business. Today with almost 1000 broadcasters crowding the airwaves, the matter of a license and wave lengths is one for hordes of lawyers and commissioners.

Among early distinguished guests on KSD was Gen. John J. Pershing, touring the country stumping for a larger standing army, following World War I. The man who had led American armies to victory in France quailed at the sight of a mike (as captains and kings do even today) and after a long and painful pause, turned desperately to the announcer and pleaded, “What shall I say, Miss Jones?” To which she replied, “Just say what you have to say, General,” and the petrified Pershing then spoke his piece. Other world figures to appear with Miss Jones for the KSD radio audience included Lloyd George and King Albert of Belgium.

When the St. Louis Post-Dispatch began operating the city’s first commercial radio station – KSD – in 1922, it joined the nationwide bandwagon of companies and individuals putting radio stations on the air.

Other stations had also been licensed in St. Louis. WEW at St. Louis University had been broadcasting since April 1921, but it was non-commercial. WEB was under the auspices of Benson Broadcasting as an amateur station.

There are printed reports indicating that KSD conducted broadcasts before licensing. The first broadcast, according to at least two sources, occurred on March 9, 1922. At least one source indicates the station actually began broadcasting Feb. 14 of that year but was forced off the air until it got a license (#330). According to the Post report published March 11, 1922, the inaugural broadcast at 7:45 p.m. that day: “will consist of musical numbers by St. Louis talent, late news reports, elocution and brief addresses. Notable among features will be a message from Secretary of Commerce Hoover to radio stations in the Middle West, and an address by Miss Jeanette Rankin of Montana, first woman member of Congress.”

The first “official” broadcast of KSD in reported to have happened on June 26, 1922, featuring entertainment by the orchestra of the Statler Hotel, conducted by Seth Asbergh. Also in June of its inaugural year, KSD broadcast a speech by Warren Harding at the World Court held in St. Louis. The speech was also carried in New York by WEAF.

KSD was moved to its 550 kHz frequency in May of 1923, having begun broadcasting on 833 kHz with 20 watts of power. In 1927 it began a temporary sharing of its frequency with KFUO. KSD became a member of the AT&T Network in December of 1923 and was an original station on the NBC Red Network in 1926.

The station was one of six around the country to carry the first Presidential speech ever broadcast when Calvin Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress on Dec. 6. 1923. The audio signal was distributed over AT&T’s long distance phone lines.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/97)

When KSD, the radio station of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, took to the airwaves in 1922, the newspaper took great pains to make sure everyone knew about this wonderful experiment.

Even though the station had been on the air sporadically for four months, the big push came in anticipation of the “grand opening” broadcast, which was scheduled Monday evening, June 26, 1922. The day before, newspaper readers were treated to a tour of the station, complete with photos of the complicated broadcasting equipment. “On the left, a view of the transmitter with side panels removed, showing power tubes, choke coils and instruments for regulating frequency and oscillations. On right, top of the input speech panel, with monitor horn coming from the ceiling. The speech input panel will amplify feeble electric waves several hundred thousand times without distortion. The monitor enables the operator to hear loudly the exact quality of the modulation before it goes into the transmitter.”

Also shown was a photo of a special brick building that had been erected on the roof of the Post building at 12th Street and Olive. It contained the “transmitting apparatus,” as well as three units of a one-ton generator, which was housed in a soundproof room. Two 80-foot towers had also been constructed atop the building. The antennas were suspended between them.

It was with suitable fanfare that the paper – in an un-bylined full-page article – promoted the new facility and the upcoming broadcast “Monday night, then, is the time set for the grand opening of the new station of KSD. What it will do, in the way of transmission, has been partly disclosed by tests already made. The full beauty and perfection of modern radio will be demonstrated for the first time…”

And the broadcast was staged to promote St. Louis as well as KSD. Following a series of bugle calls played by trumpeter John Klein of the 138th Infantry, the radio editor spoke briefly, saying, “In order that great communities, numbering hundreds of thousands and scattered over great areas, may enjoy the best music, receive important news and listen to entertaining and instructive lectures, it is necessary that someone should provide a costly and efficient broadcasting station. This the Post has done.”

“Many a boy with simple household tools can make an efficient receiving set; to send broadcast voice and music perfectly, however, is another matter. For that reason the Post-Dispatch has had constructed for it the latest and most perfect of radio apparatus, and it gladly placed it at the service of the people of the Middle West. Its only purpose is to serve an immense community in a variety of ways without charge or income of any kind.”

Listeners also heard the “Triumphal March from Aida,” performed by the Hotel Statler Orchestra. The came a speech by the president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, F.W.A. Vesper. He told listeners of St. Louis’ progress in science, the arts and industry. Mayor Henry Kiel spent a good part of his speech plugging the city’s Municipal Opera. And there was more music.

Oddly, the Post’s follow-up of the big event was muted. Following a post-event write-up the following day and a two-page spread July 23 heralding letters from far-away listeners, there was very little “news” written about the station. In fact, a fire at the studios in the newspaper building was not reported in the paper for several days, even though it forced the station to limit its broadcasts. Articles about the station in the two ensuing months were nothing more than promotional pieces about the coming evening’s broadcast.

One explanation might be the policy in the early days of radio to minimize the identities of station announcers. Researchers have been unable to track specifics, but the early announcers were only identified by a series of initials (Tommy Cowan of WJZ in New Jersey was A.C.N., which stood for Announcer Cowan, Newark. Milton Cross, who also worked at WJZ, was A.J.N., using his middle initial since A.C.N. was taken.) One of the most popular announcers at KSD was Virginia Jones, who was allowed to identify herself as “Miss Jones.” There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that she did not identify herself during her first days as an announcer. A listener reportedly wrote asking for some sort of identification: “Please tell me the name of your announcer. If it’s a lady, she has a nice voice. If it’s a man, he’s a damn sissy.”

Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 9/99.)