An anonymous former employee of KPRC moderates a Facebook group devoted to the history of the KPRC radio and television stations. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in Houston's broadcasting history. The blog includes the following photos of the KPRC transmission tower located on the northwest quadrant where Eldridge Road intersects Highway-90A. Actually, Eldridge Road was known as KPRC Road even when I was a child.
I think I can find the exact date, but I'm too lazy to do it right now. Anyway, the tower and transmitter building stayed in Sugar Land for a very short time around 1929/30 -- just a year or so. I think it moved to La Porte and then other locations through the '30s and '40s. The picture above shows a snow-covered scene from the winter of 1930.
The following picture shows the equipment room in the building.
The next picture shows the engineer and his wife in May, 1926 before their move to the Sugar Land transmitter station.
Here's what the blogger said about them:
"KPRC's first couple, Olin S Brown and his wife Ruby Jo, at the piano in KPRC Radio's solo studio on the 22nd floor of the Post-Dispatch building. Olin and Ruby both worked at the station, he as remote engineer, she as studio hostess and secretary to Alfred P. Daniel. Later they lived at the transmitter site in Sugar Land. In 1934 they moved to Dallas where Olin worked for WFAA until his retirement in 1967."
Sometime after KPRC left the transmitter station, it became the home (minus the tower) of Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Weth. He was Chief Engineer at Imperial Sugar.
My thanks go to the anonymous employee moderating the KPRC Facebook group. I would have linked directly to his photos, but I couldn't find a way that non-Facebook viewers could get access.
No comments:
Post a Comment