First Radio Broadcasts Heard Across City

The evolution of
the electronic medium known now as “radio” took a giant stride in 1895 when
Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi devised a way to send Morse-coded telegraph
messages over long distances without using wires. This innovation changed how
people communicated, and by the turn of the century Postal Cable Telegraph
Company and Western Union of Illinois were serving the Quincy area.

The pace of life
in Adams County burgeoned as “wireless telegraphy” often reduced message
delivery from days to minutes. Farmers adopted it for gathering market reports
and weather forecasts; sports fans for getting scores and statistics. Aside
from its practical uses, wireless became a hobby for youngsters across the
United States. Boys like Gorham Cottrell
and Ferd Schwarzburg in Quincy not only mastered Morse code but built their own
sets able to receive and send messages.

In September 1914,
Rev. Father Adrian Schmitt installed Quincy’s first wireless station capable of
trans-versing the nation at St. Francis Solanus College (later renamed Quincy
College, then Quincy University). Schmitt began teaching this technology in the
science department and the federal government granted his station the city’s
first transmitting license.

Involvement in
this field faltered during World War I when President Woodrow Wilson ordered
wireless communication stopped to prevent enemy interception of military
secrets, and for nearly three years airwaves remained silent.

After the war
ended in 1918 Wilson lifted these restrictions.
Canadian-born Engineer Reginald Fesenden, who did most of his work in
the U. S., added the dimension of voice and music to telegraphic key sounds of
dots and dashes. Soon the invention of
built-in loudspeakers eliminated cradled ear receivers designed for a single
listener. These features increased the popularity of what people now called “wireless
telephones.”

Quincyans who
owned one could hear the premier broadcast of the 1922 World Series and one
year later, President Calvin Coolidge deliver the broadcast of a presidential
address. Enterprising businessmen placed a wireless within an open boxcar at
Front and Hampshire to broadcast to the public. The age of radio had arrived.

Bob Compton, owner of Bob’s Battery Shop in Carthage,
Illinois, along with Fred Ferris and Earl Garard, built an apparatus capable of
receiving and transmitting messages over a 500-mile radius. In May 1920, they
installed a 50-watt radio station, WCAZ, at Carthage College. The Quincy Whig
Journal financed this venture and daily broadcasts of weather, farm markets and
news began.

Two years after
WCAZ went on the air, Quincy Electric Supply and the Quincy Daily Herald began
the Gem City’s first radio station, WCAW, broadcasting out of the Illinois
Battery Company at 316 Maine. Noel Havermale erected the equipment and managed
the station. The newspaper’s December 2, 1921, edition announced: “The air is
filled of music, short stories and gossip, free to everyone prepared to receive
it.”

The first
receptions made by Quincy residents of station broadcasts created excitement
and wonder. When John Schott of 1420 Kentucky heard the grand opera “Samson and Delilah” sung in an auditorium in
Chicago, it not only garnered headlines but turned Schott into a sought-after
authority on radio.

Although rising
expenses soon forced WCAW to shut down, radio broadcast technology continued
evolving in Quincy. Before
the federal government allocated separate band width use, amateur broadcasts
often interfered with station transmissions. A 20-year-old man from Hannibal,
William “Bill” Lear—nicknamed by many citizens the “radio bloodhound”— usually
handled complaints. He moved to Quincy in 1922 and opened Quincy Radio
Laboratories at 645 Hampshire. During his two year stay in the Gem City, he not
only diagnosed reception problems but wrote a technical column for the Quincy
Daily Herald and built one of the world’s first compact radios. Later in his
life, he became a world-famous inventor who received more than 120 patents,
many related to radio.

By the mid-1920s,
the city had more than two dozen shops that sold, built or repaired radios, and
they formed the Quincy Radio Dealers Association. From March 10th through
the 14th of 1925, this group hosted the first large-scale live local
radio show, with a medley of orchestras, singing groups and entertainers
performing at the National Guard Armory. Promoters selected Erwin Swindel and
Miss Val McLaughlin, broadcasters from Station WOC in Davenport, Iowa, to emcee
the event. Over 7,100 people listened at the Armory and at the Orpheum Theater
and the Duker Furniture Company Gallery. This show became a major annual event.

Enthusiasm for
this new technology sometimes fomented exaggerated claims. Russell Williams of
1805 Grove announced he could receive radio broadcasts by screwing his wireless
into a light socket and creating a makeshift antenna. Quincy, he proclaimed,
would soon experience the “greatest radio thrills” and be in the “very largest
letters on the radio map” when it becomes headquarters of his “Super Antenna
Company.” A widely-circulated but unverified belief that radio waves could
hasten the growth of crops piqued the interest and then the ire of Adams County
farmers.

While some
predictions of radio’s possibilities vaporized in time, others accurately
foretold of broadcasting’s future. An October 26, 1924 article in the Quincy
Daily Journal stated: “Radio movies with voice and color will amuse audiences
in the near future. Television, that mysterious device by which a person can
see over a telephone wire, is the basis of this latest invention.”

A Quincy man,
Chesleigh Gerard, became the first regular announcer on Bob Compton’s WCAZ
station in Carthage. In July 1925,
Compton changed its call sign to WTAD, telling the public these new letters
stood for “

W

e

T

ravel

A

ll

D

irections.” In December
of the following year, he transferred his license and moved the station into a
building at 6th and State in Quincy. By this time most homes had
sets, as WTAD filled the airwaves with the sounds of radio that brought the
world closer to the lives of local citizens.

Sources

“All the
Thrills of Grand Opera Furnished in Your Own Home—By Wireless.”

Quincy Daily Herald

, Dec. 2, 1921, 11.

“Carthage
Boys Show Wireless in Action.”

Quincy
Daily Herald

, May 10, 1920, 4.

Federal
Communications Commission. “History Cards for WTAD.” Accessed 28 April 2020. <

>

“Get Radio in
Socket of Light Globe.”

Quincy Daily
Herald

, May 9, 1922, 14.

“Here’s
Something Really New: Quincy’s First Radio Show.”

Quincy Daily Herald

, March 7, 1925, 6.

McLuhan,
Marshall.

. New York: The New
American Library, Inc., 1964, pp 259-68.

“Quincy Now
On Radio Map With Broadcasting Station.”

Quincy
Daily Herald

, May 15, 1922, 1.

“Quincy’s
First Wireless Installed at St. Francis.”

Quincy
Daily Whig

, Sept. 8, 1914, 14.

“Radio Movies
with Voice and Color to Amuse Audiences in Near Future”

Quincy Daily Journal

, Oct. 26, 1924, 11.

“Radio Shop
Will Be Opened on Hampshire.”

Quincy
Daily Journal

, Nov. 12, 1922, 6.

VanCour,
Shawn.

. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2018.