In 1921, Cincinnatian Powel Crosley Jr. began selling radios and received a license to broadcast at 20 watts. The next year, he was assigned the call letters WLW and began transmitting with 500 watts. In 1928, Crosley ordered a 50,000-watt transmitter built in Mason. He began building a 500,000-watt facility in Mason in 1933.

On May 2, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a golden key in the White House that signaled the WLW radio transmitter in Mason to beam its signal with 500,000 watts of power. Suddenly the most powerful radio station in the world, WLW could be heard from coast to coast and as far away as London.

At 9:02 p.m. on that May 2, listeners heard the president say, "I have just pressed the key to formally open Station WLW." The streetlights in Mason dimmed. Downtown at a gala at the Netherland Plaza Hotel, Crosley received congratulatory telegrams from Roosevelt and Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless communication.

Rebecca Goodman

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8361