WCCO at 100 Years: The origins of the Coon Rapids transmitter site and early history of the station

We're looking back on 100 years of WCCO's history in 2024. On October 2, 1924 the station went on the air for the first time, albeit with a short run as WLAG previously. As we celebrate the last century, we'll explore a few interesting tidbits about the station. Today, we'll look at the one thing we just cannot live without: the transmitter.

What at first blush could be a little bit "in the weeds" topic, the history of WCCO's transmitters are a crucial cog in all of radio's history. Let's go back to the start.

WLAG went on the air from the Oak Grove Hotel in September, 1922 with a small but powerful for the time 500-watt transmitter. Listeners were very limited in how to pick up the signal, using old (sometimes homemade) crystal sets. The station lasted for nearly two years but money for operating the small station dried up. This was at a time when "commercial" radio didn't exist and finding money to pay staff and bills was difficult to find.

Enter Washburn Crosby Company , the forerunner of General Mills and a Minneapolis flour milling giant of the time. They were receptive to putting WLAG back on the air and purchased the properties and assets of WLAG. Rebranding it WCCO (for Washburn Crosby Company of course), the station went on the air at 8:00 p.m. on October 2, 1924 and immediately began broadcasting on a new, 5,000-watt transmitter and improving the facilities.

It was late in 1924 that the Washburn Crosby Company arranged for the purchase of some land near Anoka, Minnesota, 18 miles north of the Twin Cities and at the time nothing but open farmland. That is where a new transmitter would be located. The station originally broadcast at 810 on the AM dial. It wouldn't move to 830 until 1939.

The station's first general manager was Earl Gammons, and he got the thrilling new project of constructing the transmitter during the winter of 1925.

On March 4, 1925 WCCO simultaneously dedicated a new 5,000-watt transmitter in Anoka and the station's new studios located on the 12th and 13th floors of the Nicollet Hotel. March 4 happened to be the date of President Calvin Coolidge's inaugural broadcast, the first event of it's kind ever to be aired nationwide over a link-up of then-existing radio stations. WCCO would be one of those early pioneers.

Thanks to that brand new transmitter, listeners with new "tube sets" all over the Midwest could hear the President of the United States live for the first time. There was one small problem however. The original radio listeners and their crystal sets couldn't pick up the broadcast because of the increased power and the site being 18 miles out of the city. Gammons later said the station received complaints from nearly every one of the estimated 15,000 crystal set owners in the Twin Cities.

The transmitter site included a new building plus two 200-foot towers that dominated the flat, farm landscape. There was a sign in place too, announcing WCCO as the "Gold Medal Radio Station." When we say it was in Anoka, it was actually Anoka Township at the time. Later it became the Village of Coon Rapids and then the City of Coon Rapids in 1959, as we know it today.

Those twin aerial towers with 5,000-watts pumping through them made WCCO the largest radio station west of the Mississippi in 1925. The station aired a lot of music in those early days, along with news interviews and a lot of commercial programming from the nation's first "network", NBC in New York. Later on, WCCO became commercially independent.

From 1925 until 1932, the station used those two towers but eventually it came time to expand. In September of 1932, more land was purchased and a 50,000-watt transmitter, the maximum allowed in the U.S., was built by Western Electric. These new facilities would make WCCO Radio one of the most powerful "clear channel" stations in the country with special emergency and remote broadcast equipment.

Two additional 300-foot transmitter towers were adding in the 1930s to further boost the signal. In those days, without as much "electronic noise" to compete with, the station was heard as far away as Honolulu, the Virgin Islands and Mexico.

It was also in 1932 that CBS Radio Network purchased the station from General Mills and became the sole owner. CBS quietly formed in 1927 and purchased one-third of WCCO in 1929 before purchasing the rest. CBS added network shows to the station in 1937.

Studios remained in the Nicollet Hotel until April of 1938 but with so much growth, the station was bursting at the seams. There was so little space, they were stacking file cabinets in bathtubs at the hotel. They made the decision in 1937 to find new space.

WCCO moved to a new building, a former Elks Club at 625 2nd Avenue South in Minneapolis. Most shows originated from the fourth floor where a large auditorium was located for special shows.

"We had used the Elks Club several times for special shows," recalled Gammons. They were giving up the club. It had a lot of room for offices and an auditorium on the fourth floor where we could put on shows. So we moved over there and fixed it up and it was a very satisfactory arrangement."

The familiar antenna you see in Coon Rapids in 2024 was actually built in 1930. It allowed the station to reach even further. The "vertical radiator" antenna reaches a height of 654 feet, more than twice the height of the original towers and at the time, 200 feet higher than the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis. That made it the tallest structure in Minnesota until the IDS was built in 1973.

The Tower has been in service 24 hours a day since it went on the air in 1939. That same year the FCC reallocated all the radio channels in the United States and WCCO was changed from 810 to the present 830. WCCO was one of the original 40 stations designated as Clear Channels by the FCC.

The tower site has been upgraded several times over the decades, with a new brick facility built in the 1930s to house the transmitter and other equipment. The building actually housed an engineer on duty 24 hours a day for several decades until certain services could be automated. There is still an engineering shop, cots and facilities for a person to "live" on site in the historic building.

Those early experiments with towers, tower arrays, and transmitters is one more example of WCCO paving the way for radio stations and broadcasting advances across the country, and a very important part of our 100 years as "The Good Neighbor to the Northwest"!

For more on WCCO's history and 100 year celebration, click here . You can also purchase a special WCCO 100th Anniversary double-vinyl album here which includes over eight hours of audio in a digital download along with over 200 photos.