It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when KMOX was forced to relocate in temporary studios after the station’s landlord, the Federal government, forced them out of their large, well-appointed quarters.
In 1956, Mart Building owner the U.S. Government, told KMOX management that they had to vacate because the U.S. Army Support Center needed more space. CBS owned KMOX, and what happened next (which is reconstructed here from memoranda) was based in part on the plans CBS had to acquire a television station in St. Louis. KMOX found a vacant building at 9th and Sidney in Soulard, just south of downtown St. Louis that had originally been built in 1904 as the Anthony & Kuhn’s Brewery. A floor plan was sketched out by engineer Harry Harvey that had KMOX radio and television working side-by-side. The move was made in March of 1957.
Ollie Raymand was a popular KMOX radio personality from 1950 – 1960. As he remembers it, everyone on the staff knew the Soulard location was temporary, but that was never mentioned in press releases. The old brewery was owned by Bank Building Company, and Raymand says CBS became a tenant in Soulard until design and construction of brand new studios could be completed. Bank Building was a shared tenant at Soulard. That company’s woodworking shop, with its noisy power equipment, wasn’t exactly the kind of neighbor a radio station would want.
The network’s plans to acquire the Channel 11 frequency in St. Louis fell through and they ended up buying KWK-TV, which already had its own studio. This meant CBS wouldn’t need a building to house radio and television here, and they began planning and construction of a new building with about 15,000 square feet on Hampton Avenue. Until that was finished, KMOX remained in the old, cavernous brick building in Soulard. “The building was ‘Scrubby Dutch’ brick,” says Raymand. “The entrance opened into what would have been the basement level. Then you’d walk up a few steps to the studios and offices. We had a fairly large studio – one that would accommodate the 26-piece studio orchestra that would do feeds to the network.”
Engineer Clarence Nieder says that big studio “was kind of sunken,” and orchestra members were select members of the St. Louis Symphony. Chorus members came from the Municipal Opera, and the lavish musical productions were summer staples heard nationwide on CBS. There was also a large parking lot, which meant staffers no longer had to pay to park, as they had downtown. Nieder says employees entered the building from the rear. There was no staff lounge as there had been in the Mart Building, but Ollie Raymand says the bar just up the street sold shots of red-eye for a quarter. That, combined with the strong scent of hops from the Anheuser-Busch complex a couple blocks south helped make the two years in Soulard memorable for KMOX staffers.
There were still turntable operators at KMOX in the late ‘50s, but tape cartridges for pre-recorded commercials hadn’t surfaced yet, so all pre-recorded commercials were on discs, keeping those turntable guys very busy. Nieder says there were only two turntables in the master control room.
Station manager Robert Hyland had negotiated the play-by-play broadcast rights for the Cardinals, whose games usually pre-empted the afternoon soap operas. The soaps were transcribed on large discs by engineers and played back at night. Almost all of the office furnishings and technical equipment in the Soulard studios had been moved from the Mart Building and should have been replaced.
Even though the new Hampton Avenue facility was significantly smaller than their previous digs, the KMOX employees were said to be extremely happy to leave Soulard after two years and move to a place where everything, including the equipment and furnishings, was brand new.
(Reprinted with permission of the St.Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 02/04. )