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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)

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)

(No Byline) KSD, one of the oldest stations in the United States, after ten years of serving only as an outlet for the National Broadcasting Company, is making great strides in becoming a local station originating programs of its own.

With William H. West, as General Manager, it has undergone a complete reorganization and it originates from seven to ten features a day in addition to the fine chain programs that come through there. KSD is one of the pioneer stations in both popularity and existence and is reclaiming the position that it formerly owned. It was through KSD that a president of the United States spoke for the first time. When President Harding was here in 1923 he spoke on June 21 from the Coliseum on the subject of the “World Court.”

Operating with a minimum of overhead the station is seeking to build up its entertainment features to the highest degree and that it is succeeding is evidenced by the type of programs that are coming from there and have been for the past several months.

Gay Lee, former Director of the Farm Service Hour of KMOX is heard regularly at 11 a.m. over KSD. The Holman Sisters, a piano duo, Francis Jones, violinist, and Elmer Schwartzbeck are also regularly heard on their programs. The program department is headed by Richard Pavey from WLW as Program Director, and he is supported in program work by Chuck Bolte, Alice Vogel, Hilda Gottschak, Don Hunt and Allen Taylor.

W.F. Ludgate, who has been at the station since its beginning is head of the engineering department and is assisted by Robert Coe and C.R. Yarger. There are four salesmen in the new set-up who are Edward W. Hamlin, M.D. Corbett, Frank H. Niehaus, Jr., and Walter E. Wieler.

The announcers heard are Richard Pavey, Allan Taylor, Robert Coe and Chuck Bolte.

Sponsors of the programs heard over KSD include Pevely Dairy Company, who sponsor the “Stars of Tomorrow” broadcast each Sunday afternoon wherein child talent is discovered and given a chance to appear over the air; Minit-Rub, Standard-Tilton Milling Company; Benjamin Moore Paint Company and the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Lines which bring baseball scores to KSD listeners three times a day.

Mr. West, a former Director of Operations at KMOX, is one of the real veterans of radio at the age of twenty-nine. As long ago as 1922 when radio was in its infancy, he installed and operated a radio station at Springfield. Later he came here with the Colin B. Kennedy Radio Corporation and was influential in installing the 50,000 watt station of KMOX, one of the largest in the world.

(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 4/29/33)