For four long years, Jamestown residents had turned on their radios to hear the war news. Listening to WJTN at 1240 on the radio dial, they heard broadcasts from places in Europe and the Pacific where they knew their loved ones, neighbors and friends were fighting. Now, finally in April 1945, the news was not so dreaded – the Allies had entered Germany in March, and it looked like the war in Europe would be over soon.
“Calling Ed Murrow … come in Ed Murrow.”
As families gathered around their radios during the war years, CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow came into their living rooms from Europe. He was one of the first “on-the-scene” reporters, broadcasting during the height of the London blitz, from an airplane on an Allied bombing mission and inside Buchenwald when the camp was liberated, suggesting that “sensitive listeners” turn off their radios while he reported what he was seeing there. He had been the London bureau chief since the late 1930s, and also reported on the German occupation of Austria, the Munich conference in 1938 and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Jamestown residents had become well accustomed to listening to the radio, as one of the first radio stations in the country, WOCL (We’re On Chautauqua Lake), was started in Jamestown in 1924. Archibald E. Newton, a World War I veteran, was an electrician and an amateur radio enthusiast. He applied for and received a FCC license, and his first broadcast was December 27, 1924. The broadcast featured several musicians performing at the brand new Hotel Jamestown. The performance was sent via telephone line to Mr. Newton’s basement on North Main Street, where the broadcasting equipment was located, aided by a 70 foot pole in his backyard. Mr. Newton did another broadcast on Dec. 31, 1924 to coincide with the opening of the Hotel Jamestown. After receiving much community support, broadcasts continued on Wednesday and Saturday nights and on Sundays, and WOCL came into being.
By 1931, the station had upped the broadcasting watts from the original 15 to 25, and it had moved to the Jamestown Baking Company Building at 8th and North Main Street. The station moved several more times, and Mr. Newton sold the station in the early 1930s. In 1936, James Broadcasting acquired the station, and its call sign was changed to WJTN, broadcasting at 250 watts from the downtown Wellman Building. By 1938, the station had moved back to the Hotel Jamestown, where it would remain for 33 years, until moving to Orchard Road in West Ellicott in the 1970s. In 1936, a young college graduate named Simon Goldman, was hired to be the WJTN sales manager. “From this moment on WJTN grew and became the voice of Jamestown,” according to information in the WJTN 75th anniversary booklet.
After the war began, the station’s owner, Jay E. Mason, and Simon Goldman, now Vice President and General Manager of the station, enlisted in the service. Mr. Goldman served for 18 months in Europe with the Communications Division of the 12th Army Group. He was a telegraph operator with the Army during the battle of Normandy and also in Northern France, Central Europe, the Ardenne Forest and the Rhineland.
Visitors to downtown Jamestown were reminded by sidewalk “sandwich boards” in front of the Hotel Jamestown to tune into WJTN, then an affiliate of the NBC “Blue” Network for up-to-date war news. There were also advertisements for buying war bonds and many local programs for women, giving tips for ladies to make their own soap and how to use makeup to “give the illusion of wearing stockings.”
From a 25-watt transmitter in Mr. Newton’s basement to today’s Media One Radio Group with five local stations, WJTN and its sister stations continue to be our local hometown news source. Congratulations on your 100th anniversary!
A future story will remind us of some of the local people whose names are forever connected with Jamestown radio. Thank you to Andrew Hill, General Manager of Media One Radio Group, for providing information for this article.
