Some weeks ago I wrote about the origins in 1922 of Berkeley’s first commercial radio station. A century ago, on May 20, 1922, the Berkeley Daily Gazette ran a front-page article announcing the opening of the Gazette’s “new broadcasting studio” at the Claremont Hotel.
“The station is in charge of Thomas A. Fife of the Maxwell Electric Co.,” the Gazette reported. “The piano used is from Benjamins’ and the phonograph from White’s music store.”
A piano and phonograph were needed because these were live broadcasts. The first program was broadcast from 1 to 2 p.m. May 21, 1922, and included performances by “an array of local radio artists,” primarily students of local singing instructor Lydia Sturtevant. The broadcasts were limited, not around the clock.
According to the paper 100 years ago, “The Gazette radio station will furnish a program each Sunday afternoon and in the near future a daily news resume, stock and market reports, weather forecast and other features, besides the music.”
On May 22, 1921, the Gazette reported that the first day of broadcasting had been a great success. During the broadcast many people had telephoned the radio studio to compliment the music. The article described the broadcasting arrangements at the Claremont: “Just off the palm room of the hotel is a small parlor where the artists sing, while in the hotel tower the sending and regulating apparatus is located.”
The broadcasts, according to the paper, could reach as far as Arizona. On May 23, the Gazette also reported that the University of California had secured a separate broadcasting license “and will send out educational programs from a new and very powerful station to be erected on the campus” in a few months.
Vacations: The Berkeley Dispensary, a medical and social service agency in West Berkeley, reported May 24, 1922, that it still needed $250 to fill out its “vacation fund” for poor children in summer 1922.
“Every day we come across more little folk who would be helped so much by two weeks in the country,” said Miss F.M. Whitman, the superintendent of social services. She talked in particular about two brothers with “heart trouble” who needed a vacation stay away from Berkeley. They were part of a family of four children younger than 11 whose working mother had been “deserted.”
Berkeley gold?: The May 16, 1922, Gazette had reported that “a miniature ‘Gold Rush’ was staged in West Berkeley Sunday when it was reported that Chris Borcher, 1729 Eighth Street, had struck ‘pay dirt’ in his back yard while digging post holes. Borcher’s shovel had uncovered bits of yellow metal which had all the appearance of gold. He showed pieces to a neighbor, who immediately started excavations in his back yard, thinking perhaps the lode extended that far. It is believed the yellow metal is bits of shaved copper which have been buried for many years and has been turned gold color by chemical action in the ground.”
Today, of course, the first reaction to a discovery like that would be to suspect it’s toxic waste, not gold.
Near-centenarians: Ninety-nine-year-old James Madison Palmer, of Berkeley, died May 21, 1922, at his home of 15 years at 2511 Benvenue Ave. Born in North Carolina, he had crossed the plains in 1849 for the Gold Rush and lived in Sonoma County about half of his life before moving to Berkeley.
A few days later the Gazette reported that another Berkeley man, William B. Brown, age 96, had been determined to be the oldest attending Sacramento’s “Days of ’49” celebration on May 25, 1922. Like Palmer, he had also “crossed the plains” in 1849. Many Berkeleyans went to the event, wearing blue and gold badges.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.