Six Years of WCMA

Not every radio station makes the cut. Most often the license is sold and the station changes form and format. But sometimes, like a shoe-string produce stand in the bad part of town... it just quietly goes away one night. This is less common now, excepting unprofitable Small-market AMs. But back in the 1930s the FRC frequency re-shuffling of the AM band bore many casualties. Take for example the short life of 1160 WCMA-AM. More here.

The station signed on in march of 1925. The 1926 Radio Service Bulletin indicates the original calls were 1350 WHBH but this changed to WCMA a year later.  Built by major George Eisenhard at Culver Academy. He had built a 75 foot antenna tower and had been demonstrating radio at least as early as 1910. It's 150 long wire was erected atop the campus Rec building and it's second floor balcony served as a makeshift studio. In the early 1930s it moved to the Johnson apartments on Lake Shore Drive. A 1926 issue of the South Bend News-Times marked the official debut of WCMA:

"WCMA is the new Culver Military Academy broadcasting station, which was formally opened and gave its first program on the evening of Nov. 29. So many artists have been engaged, and the public seemed so clamorous for encores, through telephone and telegraph messages received, that the program extended from 8:30 o'clock that evening until 2 o'clock the next morning. Thousands of fans listened to the program that evening, and hundreds of congratulatory messages received at the station on the following day. It is the best broadcasting station in northern Indiana, and sends on a wavelength of 258.5 meters."

In the 1930s it was sold to the General Broadcasting Company. As a day share it broadcast every afternoon from 1:15 PM to 5:00PM, a mere 4 hour slot. It's SM was Carl B. Watson. The aired a mix of news, commentary and musical programs. A local newspaper, "The Culver Citizen" produced a regular program on local news.  But despite the promising start, things went awry. The News-Sentinel covered the story of it's closing in November of 1932. More here.

"Culver, Ind. - WCMA, Culver’s radio station, was discontinued this week after operating for six years. The station has been sold along with Station WKBF at Indianapolis, to a Chicago firm which will combine the time at the two stations. The Culver station was established by Culver Military Academy and maintained by it for four years. It was then sold to the Curtis company of Indianapolis, which moved the equipment from the academy to the Johnson apartment building in the north part of Culver. Louis Lohr has been manager and engineer of the station."

The radio station equipment was donated to their state radio police system. The towers atop the rec building at Culver acedemy weren't taken down until 1947, several years after the passing of Maj. Eisenhard. Today the call letters live on at 1600 AM in Bayamon Puerto Rico. 

Herb Shriner Time

Herbert Shriner  would never have made it big today. Being affable, knowing some funny stories and playing the harmonica wouldn't be enough to put him over the top these days. He was sort of the Will Rogers of Indiana, if Indiana ever needed their own. But comedy was a different animal back then. He was born in Toledo in 1918, and grew up in Ft. Wayne. How he ended up as a radio celeb seems almost by accident.

He began as a humorist, what we now call a stand-up comedian. He played harmonica on radio programs like a Hoosier version of Johnny Puelo. No source gives a specific date as to his first appearance but it's generally dated to about 1940. He was being booked by the William Morris agency. His first regular spot was Camel Caravan, a comedy-variety program. He started there in 1942. That fits well in the time line since by 1952 Billboard was calling him a "TV comedian." What happened in between was WWII. Herb performed for the USO live and on air including The Philip Morris Follies.

In 1946 he was the star of the "Hoosier Radio Round Up," a radio event that was networked 300+ programs across 19 radio stations broadcasting from the Indiana State fair.  The program showcased talent in the Hoosier state. There were appearances by Singing Sam, Herb Shriner, Hoagy Carmichael, Chick Johnson, Ole Olsen and many others. Networked stations includes WISH, WIBC, WFBM, WIRE, WHOT, WHBU, WLBC, WKMO, WASK, WKMO, WKBV,  WKBF, WMLL, WBOW and WOWO. He did it again in1947. After it was all over Governor Ralph gates gave him a medal.

In 1948 he got his own radio show on CBS, Herb Shriner Time. The show also had the Raymond Scott Quintet, singer Dorothy Collins, and announcer Durward Kirby. The Herb Shriner TV Show began in 1949 which ran for 2 years. ABC picked him up for a year in 1951 and that petered out in the Fall of 1952.  CBS picked him up for a third spin in the Fall of  1952. He did a stint hosting a TV game show after that which ran until 1955. In the 1950s he did some comedy LPs, and an all harmonica orchestra which was an abomination. He went back to the night clubs. He retired to Florida, and was killed in a car wreck in 1970.

WPRO on tractor power

The book, Sudden Sea" by R.A. Scotti summarized the event:

"When WPRO, a Providence radio station, lost it's transmitting tower, the manager connected the engine from a farmer's tractor to a power generator and resumed broadcasting."

The 1938 hurricane laid waste from the Hamptons on Long Island all the way to Mattapoisett Rhode Island. The small mention got me thinking about the difficulties of staying on air in a disaster. 630 WPRO-AM was in a very dangerous situation. It reminded me of the more recent herculean efforts of stations in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. I saw a related note on NERW here.

"While the building - a two-story wood-sided affair, painted blue - looks relatively recent from the outside, it conceals a much older core: this facility was actually built back in 1938 as a transmitter site for WPRO, whose studios were then in downtown Providence at the Cherry & Webb department store, which owned the station for decades.

It was built "back in 1938" because the original, like much of Providence, was completely destroyed by winds clocked at 186 miles per hour and a powerful storm surge that ran into downtown Providence over 25 feet high. On September 21st 1938 that was true of almost everything on coastal New England south of Cape Cod.

For most tales of the destructive gale, this is a footnote. But in that moment WPRO-AM was the only station in Providence. their tale of rising up out of the flood waters to serve their community deserves some attention. I'd like more information on the type of tractor and the configuration used to power the transmitter but some things we can guess. We can assume that in the torrent, their tower was destroyed. I know that they were back on air in a commercial capacity by 1939 because they were hiring. They hired Edwin O'Connor in the Fall of 1939 at $15 a week as an announcer.WPRO has a poorly documented history. Most sources cite a 1924 start date, but all confuse their 3-part history with WLSI, WDWF and WPRO. They shared time on 1210. Some histories change the WDWF calls to WDWK. One thing is certain, It's been 86 years and nobody knows for sure anymore. It's more concrete history begins in 1931, when it and WDWF were bought by the Cherry & Webb Department Store as The Cherry & Webb Broadcasting Company. The Epic Jeff Miller Radio History site makes the single notation:

"June 10, 1924. WKBF (WDWF, WDWF-WLSI) Cranston RI (merged: WFCI/WPAW/WPRO)"

It indicates more clearly that WLSI predates even that date. But when I examine the lists of AM stations in 1924 all I see from that set is 1050 WKBF-AM operating in Cranston. Tha tmeans that all the others arose after publication of the Department of Commerce list that year and before the 1925 edition. None of them existed in 1924. They all list transmitters in Cranston and studios in Providence when hey list anything at all. Before Cherry & Webb they were all owned by Dutee W. Flint & Lincoln Studios. Interestingly they copyrighted the Cherry & Webb Broadcasting brand in 1934 after they launched 630 WPRO. Into full-time service. WPRO joined the CBS Network in 1937.

So to fast-forward to 1938. The Transmitter is in Cranston, South of Providence. It is closer to the ocean than Providence. The winds would be stronger and the water higher. The transmitter in Cranston is lost. There is no power, the roads are closed. The lines from Providence to Cranston are down. We have no way to know where the station began it's emergency broadcasts or exactly how. But I'd guess there was no tractor in downtown Providence. It is more likely the engineer located locally in Cranston set up his improvised generator locally in Cranston and broadcast programming personally as a staff of one. The 1938 Ford-Ferguson tractors had 4 cylinders and certainly had the horse-power to power a small transmitter.

After the storm they relocated the Metropolitan theatre Building in East Providence and erected a brand new Blaw-Knox tower.