Radio Articles

Development of musical programs at KSD really began to pick up momentum in 1936 when a young St. Louisan who had been conducting the Ambassador Theatre orchestra joined the station. His name was Russ David.

His first job at KSD was on a children’s amateur program. He was the mysterious “Aunt Elizabeth,” a non-speaking pianist whom listeners tried to stump with difficult song requests.

Today as an accomplished concert pianist, jazz pianist, organist, composer, dance band leader and master of ceremonies of one of KSD’s most successful programs, “Playhouse Party,” Russ David is virtually synonymous with St. Louis music.

In between “Aunt Elizabeth” and “Playhouse Party,” there has been a wealth of outstanding KSD musical programs, all bearing the Russ David stamp. He provided the musical backgrounds, for example, on the “Highway Patrol” and “Land We Live In” dramatic programs. In strictly musical offerings, Russ has probably forgotten more of them than he can remember. But these are some of the notable ones: “Ebony In Ivory,” a piano duet program with another well-known pianist, Lee Sanguinette; “Music For Your Mood”; “Allen Clark And The Office Girls,” with Russ, singer Clark and ‘office girls’ Esther Witt, Jean Lane and Jean Chassels (now Mrs. David); “Tic Toc Time” with Kay Thompson and Don McNeill, who came to St. Louis each week for this program; “Telletunes” with announcer Clair Callihan; “St. Louis Serenade,” a network program of the World War II years which brought Russ an immense amount of congratulatory mail from servicemen; the “National Federation Of Music Clubs” show; the “Griesedieck Brothers Show” and “It’s Alpen Brau Time!” “Alpen Brau Time” was originally titled “Papa Yodel’s Alpine Inn.” “That title lasted only a week,” Russ comments.

Among the memorable singers who joined with Russ on these programs were, in addition to Allen Clark, Julie O’Neil, Cheri McKay (who later had her own program – “Cheri McKay and Company”), Dottye Bennett, Joe Karnes and, in the early days, Helen O’Connell and Bob Hannon. The last two went on to national stardom, Miss O’Connell with Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra and Hannon with the “American Album of Familiar Music” program.

They were not the only ones to use KSD as a springboard to national acclaim. Harry Babbitt, the handsome balladeer with the old Kay Kyser orchestra, was once a KSD staff vocalist. Helen Traubel , who went on to star at the Metropolitan Opera, sang on KSD several times early in her career and Ron Rawsen, who has been a successful network announcer for many years, was once on the announcing staff of KSD.

(Excerpted from a KSD promotional brochure, 1960. Authored by Don Burnes.)

By William A. Kelsoe – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When Mr. Joseph Pulitzer decided last March (1922) to install radio equipment in the building, it became necessary to temporarily use a third-floor room (No. 301B), occupied then by Cartoonist Donald R. Fitzpatrick and myself. Several days were required for preparing the room and installing the wireless apparatus. Finding the disturbance there not conclusive to clear thinking in his line of business, Mr. Fitzpatrick moved out, whereupon Miss [Mabel] Denison moved in. That is how the young lady, then starting her annual [Post-Dispatch] campaign for ice for the poor and milk for babies, came to assist H.S. Trask, KSD’s manager, in booking singers, readers, speakers, pianists, violinists, etc., for our radio concerts  and other entertainments until Miss Virginia A.L. Jones could take charge of the work three weeks later (April 11). KSD’s radio operators for the first two or three weeks, until relieved by W.B. Goodwin of Jefferson City, were Lester A. Benson and William E. Woods, of the Benwood Co., the gentlemen who built our first apparatus.

The first concert broadcast from Room 301-B was given the evening of Tuesday, March 21, 1922, by the St. Louis University Glee Club, and that room continued to be the home of Station KSD up to and including June 20. The next day, June 21, Station KSD had two homes – a suite of rooms on the second floor, front, for concerts and other public entertainments, and also for making public announcements and broadcasting news on special occasions, and a “radio house” on the roof of the building, where one of the most powerful broadcasting outfits in the entire country had been installed with Willis B. Corwin as operator, and which is used several times daily. One of Miss Jones’s assistants in Room 301-B was young Mr. Louis Lacks. The first entertainment under the new arrangement was given Monday evening, June 26, Miss Loretto McBride making her debut in public service with Miss Jones on that occasion.

Not having, like Cartoonist Fitzpatrick, a place to go, I stayed when he moved out, and in consequence I now have some very pleasant recollections of the service rendered in Room 301-B (third floor) by KSD when I was one of the self-appointed assistants of Miss Jones and Mr. Trask. It was here that I first met former Vice President Marshall, Labor Secretary Davis of President Harding’s cabinet, and other national celebrities. The only souvenir of my radio services saved from the waste basket is the original of KSD’s report of the Major League’s baseball games June 14, 1922, and believing it should be preserved as a part of the early history of our radio service, I give the report here in full:

Baseball – June 14

American League
“The St. Louis Browns won today’s game at home from the Washingtons by 7 to 6. All but one of the St. Louis runs were made in the sixth inning. After a single by McManus, two St. Louis batters were walked and then McManus scored on an out at first. One of the walkers was forced home to score the second run. This left the bases full of walkers and all three scored ahead of Sisler when he hit it to the left field pavilion – six runs in one inning with only two hits and no fielding error. In the first inning Sisler scored on his own single and a double by McManus. For Washington, Rice hit to center for a home run after the first two batters had been fanned. The only error in the game was a wild throw, which let in two runs for Washington. St. Louis made only six hits, in all, and Washington, 8, each side using three pitchers. The Yankees were beaten at Detroit today 6 to 2, reducing their lead over the Browns to a game and a half. The Boston Reds were shut out at Cleveland , the Indians making three runs. The Athletics were defeated at Chicago 6 to 5 by the White Sox.

National League
“The St. Louis Cardinals were shut out again today, this time at Brooklyn, the Robins making 4 runs. Vance, the Brooklyn pitcher, held St. Louis to five hits and struck out six men. One of the four runs made resulted from a single and a triple, and the other two were scored on a wild throw from the outfield. Pittsburg was shut out at New York by the Giants, who made 13 runs. At Boston the Chicago Cubs made 15 runs to 2 for the Boston Braves. The Cincinnati-Philadelphia game was prevented by rain.

“The Cardinals got even with Vance, the strikeout king of the National League, when the Brooklyns came to St. Louis the next month, not only winning the game here July 7, but batting him for fourteen hits, including doubles by Frasier and Hornsby and home runs by Ainsmith and Hornsby. The Cardinals had beaten Brooklyn the day before by 14 to 2 runs, and their third victory July 8 came after Pitcher Vance had been sent in to save the Dodgers from another defeat. Two more games were played and won by St. Louis in that series, making five straight victories for the Cardinals over the club that had shut them out at Brooklyn on June 14.”

A fire in KSD’s new quarters on the second floor early in July made a temporary change necessary, and so, for a few days, Room 301-B was again used for our radio service.

Many of the addresses broadcast from KSD during the three months of my connection with the station were extemporaneous. When manuscripts were used, they were, with few exceptions, retained by the speakers or sent to them later. One I kept, myself, and am able to reproduce it here. It was an address by Editor George S. Johns of the Post-Dispatch to the journalists and others present at the Radio banquet given by the School of Journalism at Columbia, Mo., on the evening of May 26, 1922. Mr. Johns spoke as follows:

“Mr. Chairman and Fellow Journalists:

“I use the customary form to begin an after-dinner talk because, while I am absent from your banquet in body, I am present in voice. That I, sitting here in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch radio room can talk in my own voice to you gathered around the banquet table in Columbia is a marvel of modern science and invention. It marks the greatest advance of any invention in the shortest period of time recorded in history. It increases the terrors of the banquet table. Not only do the banqueters have to endure the speeches of those present, but speeches by those absent. They have to submit to absent oratorical treatment and have no recourse against the offender. The absent speaker is not checked by yawns or hisses, nor rebuked with glassware. He is beyond the reach of that poignant pain inflicted by the silent vanishing of his hearers. You will not offend me if this magnifier reaches through an empty room.

“Naturally we ask what are the possibilities of radio? What will it mean to mankind and to civilization? In particular, what will it mean to those nations in the progress of which the means of rapid communication play so much a part? We may as well frankly admit that we do not know precisely what it will mean. As no one dreamed of the present development of radio before the pressure of the late war speeded up its development and use so no one would dare predict to what perfection it will be brought and to what use it will be put within five years. We do know that an agency of rapid, cheap, convenient inter-communication of indefinite possibilities has been discovered and put into the service of mankind. We know that through the intangible ether sound is conveyed accurately in its original tones and modulations, that the finest and most delicate tones and nuances of the speaking and singing voice and the musical instrument can be conveyed accurately to great distances. We know that messages can be sent and received with wonderful rapidity through telegraphic, phonographic and photographic radio methods. The recording speed of messages ranges from 100 to 500 words per minute. Five hundred words a minute have been recorded in dots and dashes on the photographic film by means of radio waves.

“I do not believe for a moment that radio will take the place of the press, but I am sure it will become an invaluable agency of the press for the sending of news and the dissemination of information and as a means of bringing individuals and peoples into closer relationships and better knowledge of each other, a powerful agency for peace and progress. Let us not overemphasize the material inventions, devices and agencies of civilization. They may be used for or against higher civilization, that true culture which makes for justice and liberty and the happiness of all mankind. The development and application of radio to human uses was greatly accelerated by the necessity of finding new means of destruction and of defense against destruction in the war. Science and invention are the handmaids of war as well as of civilization and culture. The imponderables, the intangibles – the moral forces that make for just and amicable and profitable human relationships – far exceed in value material forces and devices.

“The press wields the power of publicity, the greatest moral force in the world. The telegraph, the telephone, the radio equipment, the linotype, the perfected press and our other devices are merely agencies of publicity, the modes by which it works. If these agencies are not directed by mind and heart and soul, devoted to the public welfare, they are useless, they may be destructive. What shall it profit the press to gain a world of facilities and lose its soul? An able, honest and conscientious newspaper man working in a shack with a hand press is more useful to mankind than the best equipped newspaper plant in existence under the control of journalistic flip-flappers.

“Newspaper men today are beset with temptations to debase and misuse the power of the press in the interest of wealth, power, privilege. They are assaulted by subtle and pervasive and deftly camouflaged propaganda. The freedom of the press is under constant attack by government and by special interests with spacious pleas of public welfare. Our rights have been invaded. It never had a greater task than that of guarding its own rights, the rights of the states, and the rights and liberties of citizens against governmental encroachments and bureaucratic tyranny. Never was there a greater opportunity for the press to promote peace and prosperity through good understanding and amicable cooperation among civilized nations. If we yield to temptation and fail in the tasks and opportunities before us, our wonderful equipment is futile and our work is in vain. Good night, I thank you.”

A second address to the Columbia banqueters was delivered by Mr. Clark McAdams of the Post-Dispatch. He spoke without manuscript and I am able to give only KSD’s report of the speech as printed in the Post-Dispatch the next day: “McAdams, who followed Johns, addressed the journalists in Columbia in a more facetious vein, following out, in large measure, the trend of his writings in the ‘Just a Minute’ column. Discussing literature, Mr. McAdams declared that there was no literature today, but only writing. The writing of the present is to literature what jazz is to music, he asserted, and then defended the newspaper against the accusation that it is responsible for the failing of literature by showing that some of the best modern literature came from the newspaper office and was written in the midst of the noise of the presses.”

The only other speaker that evening was a former judge of the St. Louis Circuit Court, Thomas I. Anderson, chairman of the Anti-Centralization League of America. He spoke of the growing centralization of government.

Because of the unavoidable absence, one evening, of Miss Denison, our lady manager then, I experienced the delightful thrill of having a great and unexpected honor thrust upon me. It was the evening of April 6, 1922. For the first time in my life I had charge of KSD, even the office boy, kept away by another engagement, not being there to dispute my authority. Well do I remember how busy I was kept from first to last putting the finishing touches on the daily baseball report, bringing in extra chairs, answering telephone calls, receiving the guests, distributing our home-made programs cut from the day’s edition of the Post-Dispatch, bringing water for the singers and speakers, bossing the radio operator (can’t remember whether it was Mr. Benson or Mr. Woods), and, at the close, personally escorting some of the guests to the elevator. The speakers were Mr. Henry Hoeffer, an attorney, and Capt. Robert E. Lee, a newspaper man who was then the secretary and manager of the St. Louis Auto Dealers’ Association. The music broadcast from KSD that evening was by a glee club, a mandolin club, a lady pianist and a lady vocalist named on our program but not recalled now, and also a gentleman pianist, Mr. Rudolph Schmidt, whose name was not given on the program, the gentleman playing a medley of tunes by request. The only other opportunity given me to enjoy the high honor of managing a KSD entertainment was during the interregnum between the administrations of Miss Denison and Miss Jones, the evening of Monday, April 10, and I regret to have to report that my assistant, the office boy, was again absent, having another engagement elsewhere and one reported to be even more important than the one of April 6. KSD’s star attraction in broadcasting that evening was Mrs. Donald McDonald, the lady giving a recitation from Charles Haddon Chambers’ “The Passers By.” A piano and saxophone program of popular music followed under the management of Prof. Charles Hohengarten, with Prof. Charles Dienel at the piano.

Capt. Lee’s stunt at the first of these two entertainments, that of April 6, entitles him to the distinction of having been the first newspaper man to speak as a guest of the Post-Dispatch from KSD. He entertained the “listeners-in” with one of his serio-comic monologues reported by the paper the next day as conspicuous for “stories of the kind that made Lincoln famous.” Mr. Trask, at his home in the West End, was one of the “listeners-in”. He did not miss many of our “entertainments.”

A few evenings later, April 18, another newspaper man, Edw. J. Troy, who was then with the St. Louis Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association, broadcast an address intended specially for an audience of business men, and I have not forgotten that he spoke in praise of me, when referring to our World’s Fair newspaper work together – the only time my name has even been used in a radio address. At other radio entertainments the “listeners-in” heard Humorist Lee as a speaker in a serious vein and Mr. Troy as a singer in Italian Opera. The credit of being the first newspaper man to sing as a guest of KSD was Mr. Troy’s. Miss Jones had personal charge of this and all the other many splendid entertainments broadcast after April 10 from Room 301-B.

Soon after the return to the permanent radio rooms on the second floor, KSD’s staff was enlarged, another operator being needed, another assistant for the program director and another for the general manager. The staff at this writing (November 1922) consists of H.A. Trask, editor and general manager; Miss V.A.L. Jones, program director, also in charge of KSD rooms on the second floor and the entertainments and all broadcasting there; The Misses Amy Creveling and Dorothy Dowell, and Jack Stewart with Miss Jones; Stuart C. Mahaney, assisting Mr. Trask; Willis P. Corwin and W.F. Ludgate, wireless experts and operators in the radio house, on the roof of the building, where the big broadcasting plant is installed and where all the regular broadcasting is done, except that of the evening entertainments on the second floor; and Louis Lacks, office boy and general assistance to all of his superiors, the “higher-ups.”

Many of the entertainments broadcast by KSD are heard by listening-in stations in every state of the Union, also in Canada, Mexico, Ventral America, and Alaska, several thousand stations, in all. The Post-Dispatch makes daily announcement of the program for the day.

Later, 1927: This report of KSD was written several years ago. Miss Jones in time became Mrs. Archibald T. Campbell and still later she gave up her radio service and W.H. James had charge of the paper’s radio station until his health gave way and Operators Corwin and Ludgate are still running things “on the second floor and roof” now, with James E. Spencer editing the Sunday edition’s radio pages with the aid of his assistant, R.H. Hall. Young Lacks was with the radio station two or three years and among his successors have been Jack Stewart, Dan Hanlon, Elmer Sievers and Bart McNealy. Miss Dowell was the longest in service, except Mrs. Campbell, and in the absence of Mr. Corwin and Mr. Ludgate, Miss Alice Vogel now has charge of the second floor rooms. In room 301-B, Prof. Edw. Belin’s telestereograph was first tested in this country by the professor himself and later by others, the last manager being Major Dinwiddie, now with the Manufacturers’ Railway Company.

(Originally published in the St. Louis Reference Record, 1927)

In early July 1961, I approached 1600 North Kingshighway in St. Louis. After my nine year career in modest radio facilities crammed into small buildings or tucked away in corners of high rises and hotels, I was greeted by a massive all-weather sign announcing the famous call-letters, KXOK. Each big green letter, more than five feet tall and a foot thick, was mounted on a heavy, imposing, twelve-foot frame that appeared to have permanently grown from the block-long grounds known as Radio Park. I drove part way around the circular driveway through stately old oaks and elms, passed by the curved station entrance and parked in front of an old home that was attached to the modern offices and studios. The black asphalt driveway was well-kept and freshly topped.

As I walked up three steps of the expansive front portal and into the lobby, I sensed that I had entered a famous place, a station with a rich history, a station that had hosted many famous people, well-known newscasters, and fabled sports teams. KXOK, 630 on the AM dial, had cast a long and celebrated shadow in radio history. Now, I was taking over the programming for the new owner, Todd Storz, with the intention of making the station the dominant Top 40 operation in the Midwest.

The lobby, about thirty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, proffered sofas and chairs, unobtrusive doors to men’s and women’s rooms for the comfort of newly arriving visitors, and a large rectangular receptionist station featuring a tall black telephone switchboard left over from the 1940s. A tangle of cords patched the outsiders to the insiders, and the switchboard operator took one call after another as I waited for a break. A few moments later, a small young woman with short dark hair asked, “May I help you?” I gave her my name and announced that I was there to meet the general manager. The young receptionist nodded and patched a black cord into the switchboard and passed along the information through the mouthpiece on her old-fashioned headset.

I took a seat and looked around. The lobby could have used a little touch up, a few new tiles, and new sofa and chairs… but it all felt right; Comfortable, lived in. A stairway by the front door led up to a second floor, which would eventually become an office suite for me and my programming staff. Next, I noticed the door on the far wall behind the receptionist desk. I surmised that it led into the old house, and I wondered what the old house held inside. The old house was nothing more than a museum of all discarded equipment, furniture, recordings, and files, no longer needed or  wanted in day-to-day operations.

A few minutes passed and a smiling, gray-haired gentleman with a well-smoked pipe clinched between his teeth, broke my thoughts as he approached with hand outstretched. “Welcome, Bud Connell. Welcome to Radio Park!” Chet Thomas certainly knew hospitality and I immediately felt at home.

After introducing me to the receptionist, he took me on a tour and pointed out every nuance of the famous old station while peppering the conversation with names of famous people who had graced the studios and halls. I learned that KXOK was the Midwest switcher station for one of the major networks in the 1930s and 40s. The obvious fact loomed that the station once held many more station employees than it presently had. A cavernous hallway echoed our footsteps as we passed by a row of abandoned desks with empty offices along one side. I asked, “How many people worked here when KXOK was a network affiliate”, and Chet Thomas answered proudly, “A hundred and ten.”

Exiting the hallway, we entered an enormous room that would have easily held thirty desks. There were only four desks, three occupied—-the controller, the traffic manager, and the traffic manager’s assistant. The controller and traffic manager worked with pencil and paper. The only typewriter was hard at work as the assistant typed the next day’s programming log. The sales promotion manager occupied a small office in the corner and a stairway led up to the general manager’s office three-room office suite and conference room.

The next room on the right, about 20 by 20, initially functioned as the newsroom; however, I had the news department moved closer to the front of the station, and we turned the old newsroom into a break room with coffee and drink machines, and places to sit.

After the break room, we entered another massive room after a slope step down. This became the DJ’s lounge, a place filled with desks, files, and personal items belonging to the entertainment staff. During the Cold War, this windowless room became the Fall Out Shelter, and the flat roof was more than three feet of sand and other supposedly radioactivity absorbing materials.

Off the break room and next to the DJ Lounge, we exited to the Don Carlos Patio, complete with a fountain and sitting areas, a place where station executives could entertain visitors with outdoor cocktail parties and buffet lunches.

Moving back toward the front, we exited the Break Room into a sound lock and then into the main on-air studio, a large rectangular soundproof room of more than 1000 square feet. At one time, this studio held a live audience of one-hundred, although the theatre chairs were long since removed. At this time, the studio accommodated the DJ’s desk, the newsman’s desk, and the platter turner. The platter turner was the last vestige of the American Federation of Musicians, and the half-dozen or so on the KXOK staff were the last remaining members of the former studio orchestra. In 1961, I negotiated an end to the A F of M contract, and the records (platters) were transferred to self-cuing cartridges and jurisdiction was given to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, our studio engineers.

In front of the big on-air studio was a long glass window, and the studio engineer looked down into the studio as he handled tapes of the music and commercials as called for by the DJ and station programming log. Behind the on-air control room, we walked into the production area, which housed the massive Ampex 300 reel-to-reel machines. To the right, another control room looked down on an even larger studio, formerly known as Studio A, which could accommodate at least a hundred-strong studio audience. A few of the original theater chairs remained along with a black concert grand piano and myriad microphone setups.

Between the production area and the aforementioned cavernous hall, the enormous and famous control board that once connected network affiliated stations all over the USA to their favorite network shows still glowed brightly as the sound of KXOK pumped through it on the way to the station transmitter.

In April 1964, Chet Thomas left us as General Manager and was replaced by Jack Sampson.

This old facility promoted creativity, even prompted it from us as long as we were there. Radio Park was an image, indelible in our minds and hearts, and in our loyal listeners—-and it will never again be repeated. Most of all, it will be missed by all of us for the rest of our lives—-sadly missed by those of us who were fortunate enough to work there.

(By Bud Connell)

It was a Saturday night, January 31, 1925. Radio, though becoming more common, was still in its infancy. In St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch owned a station. So did St. Louis University, Stix, Baer & Fuller and Concordia Seminary. It was only natural that another newspaper might want to generate some publicity.

So the St. Louis Star reached an agreement with the owners of WIL, Benson Broadcasting. While no details of the agreement have been found, copies of the Star from that time refer to WIL as “The St. Louis Star Station.” Its center of operations was the Star Building at 12th and Olive. The call letters had just been changed from the original WEB, and the Bensons used their relationship with the Star to gain a lot of promotional print.

Two days before the big event of January 31, the Star’s front page carried the headline “Tune In on The Star, WIL, Saturday Night.” A huge photo spread the next day trumpeted, “Here Are the Entertainers on the First Regular Program to Be Broadcast By WIL, The St. Louis Star.” Those pictured included announcer Billy Knight “The Little Ole Professor,” guitar duo Wolgast and Girlie, The Arcadia Peacock Orchestra, Okeh recording artists the Arcadian Serenaders, Johnny Maher “The Smiling Songster,” monologist Chester Gruber, and four men who called their group The Missouri Belle Quartette. The show was broadcast at 10 p.m., and the station flexed its technical muscles by taking listeners to the city’s Arcadia Ballroom for the performances of the Peacock Orchestra and Arcadian Serenaders.

The newspaper did its best to promote all aspects of the broadcast, even running an article the day before titled “Latest Equipment Used in WIL, The Star’s New Station.” The accompanying article said “…observers of the skyline looking eastward from the great traffic thoroughfare at 14th and Locust Streets Wednesday received a distinct shock on observing that a huge antenna had risen from a lofty mast upon the roof of the Star Building, 300 feet in the air.”

The station’s studio and office were on the eighth floor of the building. “The walls and ceiling of the studio are lined with acousticelotex to shield the microphone from harmful vibration and improve the tonal qualities of the chamber. This feature is further enhanced by a heavy felt under the carpet, on top of additional layers of Celotex.”

There was no Sunday edition of the newspaper, so the reporters had a full day to come up with the follow-up story to the event: “Radio Fans in 16 States Laud Concert by WIL.” There were three sub-heads: “First Formal Program Broadcast by the Star Saturday Night Was Enjoyed in All Parts of the Country.” “Clarity of Tone Makes Favorable Impression.” “Quality of Offerings Also Pleases, According to Hundreds of Messages Received.” The article described a flood of “hundreds of telegrams” from states as far away as New Jersey, Louisiana and Wyoming.

It wasn’t easy listening to radio in early 1925, as evidenced in the article’s final paragraph, which attested to the sporadic nature of broadcasts: “Tomorrow evening the station will be silent, but on Wednesday night another attractive program will be given. Thursday night is also a silent night.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 7/1999)

Beginning Thursday, February 1, [1934] KMOX began feeding the western portions of CBS sustaining network four hours weekly of all-star programs from Monday to Saturday between 5:15 and 7:30 p.m. These features will include some of the best programs at the station and will go to the West and Southwest network.

Some of the new programs to be heard during these hours will be “And the Crown Roared,” a sport feature with France Laux at the helm; Russell Brown with the Harmonettes – a girl trio; Eddie Dunstedter and his band; “Songs at Eventide” with Pearl Boyer; “The Three of Us” and orchestra; Tom Baker, Tenor; and Diane Craddock with her orchestra.

Most of these programs will not be heard through KMOX because of commercial broadcasts at the time they are scheduled, but they will go to CBS outlets in Colorado, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and South Dakota, with the list varying from week to week.

(From KMOX, the Voice of St. Louis newsletter, 2/13/1934).

The “real” pioneers of radio – those people who used to fall asleep with a pair of ear phones clamped to their heads – will remember those early days  and a station answering to the call letters – if that’s what they were – 9YK, before Department of Commerce officials assigned the letters now familiar to most radio listeners.

For quite some time prior to 1921, WEW was experimenting in radio transmission, the outcome of these experiments being the present station. The period of experiment might be termed the “pre-historic” period of WEW’s existence, inasmuch as officials have chosen to date its official life from April 26, 1921, when the station inaugurated the first regular broadcasts it presented at regular, stated periods, twice a day. These reports are still being broadcast and have been for the twelve years of its history. Incidentally, the time for these releases has not changed in the twelve years except in one detail – the night broadcasts were discontinued because the station’s present license allows only daytime transmission.

Contemporary reports of this inaugural program are interesting, if not amazing, in the light of present day radio reception. A reporter for the Belleville Advocate stated in a news story of the reception in Belleville: “Eventually the government hopes that wireless receiving sets will be established in the farm houses of the land so wireless communications may be established throughout the country.” Recent census reports have indicated that the “hopes” have been realized far beyond the expectations of the most optimistic prophets of that time.

Scattered reports on reception indicated that an almost identical procedure was followed in each of the receiving points. First there was a distinct whistle; then the whistle changed to a “cat concert,” presumably of the back fence variety. Rumbling noises followed with occasional outbursts of staccato, sharp interruptions, after which a human voice became audible. Quoting again from a newspaper account of this epoch making broadcast: “Whoever did that talking had some voice and knew how to make even a prosaic weather report sound real impressive.” This was the first official weather report sent out over radio in the United States, and Rev. William H. Robison, S.J., President of St. Louis University at that time was the one who read the report. The words may be likened, by comparing later developments, to the shot fired at Fort Sumpter [sic] which was “heard ‘round the world.”

The years slipped by speedily, with WEW constantly keeping abreast of the developments as each was introduced. Still under the science division of the University, the radio station became a vehicle for experiment by members of the meteorological department, notably Brother George E. Rueppel, S.J., who more than any other single person, is responsible for the progress of WEW from the weak, dot-dash transmitter into the present modern, telephone broadcasting with an enviable record for fulfilling its purpose – existing for the “interest, convenience and necessity of the public.”

In November of 1926, a new transmitter was installed and was universally acclaimed as one of the most efficient transmitting stations in the country. A short time later, the transmitter and studios were relocated – this time in the Law School of St. Louis University, its present location.

During the middle of the year of 1932, a comprehensive expansion program was begun, shortly after the appointment of Rev. Charles T. Corcoran, S.J., as director of the station. From that time until the present day, the expansion plans were carried out slowly but effectively, and the result has been the attainment of an enviable reputation among radio listeners in St. Louis and the surrounding territory.

WEW is perhaps the only non-commercial station broadcasting regular entertainment features during most of the time its license allows. This fact, in itself, has caused much comment among people who have appreciated the efforts made by the station without capital or material aid from advertising sponsors.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 5/6/1933).