USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 36
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As managing editor, he was succeeded in 1939 by George W. Edman, who had organized the paper's county coverage a dec- ade earlier. Edman was one of the prime movers in establishing the Berkshire Symphonic Festival at Tanglewood. In 1947, he resigned from the Eagle to join the United States Information Agency.
From 1910 to 1928 the key job of city editor was filled by Clarence A. Crandall (1879-), a Hancock native who also covered many of the most celebrated Berkshire court cases of the period, achieved a measure of fame as a horticulturist, and in 1955 was still contributing a weekly column to the Eagle's "Our Berkshires" department. His successor as city editor was Donald L. Coleman (1898-1947). A founder of the Pittsfield Community Music School and the Community Concert Asso- ciation, Coleman was responsible for reviving in 1929 the "Eagle Santa Toy Fund," which today raises some $4,000 a year to buy toys for needy Berkshire children at Christmas time.
Other notable Eagle personalities of the period included Irving D. Sisson (1891-1940), who recorded the local scene with keen originality as staff photographer in the 1930s; Ed- ward W. McCormick (1903-1947), who succeeded Edman as county editor; and John M. Flynn (1885-), who covered al- most every beat on the paper. As sports editor from 1919 until his retirement in 1952, Flynn was known to county sports fans for his "Referee's Sporting Chat" column which he wrote for three decades and, since his retirement, is still writing on a weekly basis.
Collectively these men and the others who worked with them throughout the period stamped the Eagle with a character of its own. It was a paper that could take pride (though many readers might disagree) in keeping its editorial opinions on its editorial page, in presenting lively coverage while disdaining
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sensationalism, in a willingness to take unpopular positions, and in giving its critics free rein to express their opinions in its news columns and carefully nurtured letters-to-the-editor de- partment.
As a spokesman for middle-of-the-road political independ- ence, the Eagle often found itself a target for partisans on both sides of the fence. But on issues of local and county concern it exerted, in 1955 as in 1916, a strong and often decisive influ- ence on the thinking of the community.
Radio Station WBRK
Pittsfield's first radio station, WBRK, made its initial broad- cast on February 20, 1938. Among participants in this program, which emanated from the station's studios at 8 Bank Row, were Congressman Allen T. Treadway of Stockbridge and Mayor James Fallon. WBRK was associated with the Columbia Broad- casting System until 1940, when it affiliated with the Mutual Broadcasting System and its New England subsidiary, the Yan- kee Network.
The first owner and manager of the station was Harold Thomas. WBRK was bought in 1941 by Monroe B. England, who sold it in 1947 to Leon Podolsky of Pittsfield, one of the country's foremost electrical engineers, assistant to the presi- dent of the Sprague Electric Company of North Adams. Podolsky remains in control.
Since its founding, WBRK has been a familiar voice to the people of Pittsfield and the Berkshires. In addition to providing entertainment, the station has concentrated heavily on news broadcasts, especially local news, competing with the news- papers in this field as a matter of policy. In 1953, Larry Vaber, director of news, began a weekly broadcast of editorializing on local news, a new departure for radio in the Berkshires.
WBRK has had a pioneering spirit from the start. In 1938, from the local General Electric laboratory, it broadcast over a national network the first description and actual sound of man- made lightning. It was one of the first stations in the country to inaugurate in-school educational radio listening, designing spe-
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cial programs for reception in classrooms in many Berkshire communities. The Sacred Heart program, a transcribed daily feature now heard on radio stations around the world, was first broadcast by WBRK in 1939, through the efforts of the Jesuit Fathers at Shadowbrook in Lenox.
The station does its share of public service broadcasting, as required by law. It makes its facilities available to organizations, clubs, churches, and other groups wishing to publicize their meetings and programs. For many years it has donated time on Sunday mornings for broadcasts from the local churches. Since 1938, it has covered, and reported by air, all of the big news in the Berkshires.
Among those whom Pittsfield and the surrounding area came to know by their voices over WBRK and who have since made names for themselves have been Bob Dixon, now with CBS; Frank McCarthy, now an executive of the Mutual Broadcasting System; Ray Dorey, today well known in Boston as an announc- er and disc jockey.
Television Station WMGT
The owners of WBRK, the Greylock Broadcasting Company, began planning for a local television station in 1947. The enter- prise faced two formidable obstacles-one, to get a favorable channel assigned to the area; second, to find a favorable site for a television transmitter. The company wished to place its transmitting tower on Mount Greylock, the state's highest peak.
This proposal aroused considerable opposition in many quar- ters, for Greylock had been set aside as part of a state park which was not to be used for commercial purposes. It was Podolsky's contention that television in the Berkshires would not be feasible unless the transmitting tower were on Greylock because of the rugged nature of the area. After much debate, the state legislature passed a special bill clearing the way for a TV transmitter on Greylock.
This removed one block, but another remained. A UHF (ultra high frequency) channel had already been assigned to
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the Berkshire area. But Podolsky contended that a UHF channel could not cover the Berkshires, and in 1951 applied for Channel 3, a VHF (very high frequency) channel. But Channel 3 was assigned to New London, Connecticut.
Early in 1953, UHF channel 74 was applied for and granted to the local station, which was assigned the call letters WMGT. Construction of the transmitting tower on Greylock began im- mediately. On February 22, 1954, the first telecast went out from there on Channel 74. As no UHF station had tried a chan- nel as high as 74, operating at 500,000 watts, there were nu- merous breakdowns and difficulties.
Late in 1954, WMGT received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to change from channel 74 to 19. The results were beyond expectations. Clear reception of both pictures and sounds were reported not only in the Berkshires, but in Connecticut, eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. Viewers over a wide area received clear TV pictures on "19" until February 25, 1956, when WMGT had to suspend operations because storms severely damaged and tore down parts of its transmitting tower on Greylock.
Having been manager of radio station WBRK for ten years, John T. Parsons was named the first manager of WMGT, con- tinuing to the summer of 1955, when he resigned to join WHYN-TV in Holyoke. His successor was William P. Geary, earlier with WBRK, who returned to Pittsfield in 1954 to be- come sales manager of WMGT.
Others on the staff included Edward W. Pearson, of Green- field, as program director; Laughran (Larry) Vaber, of West Stockbridge, as director of news and publicity for combined WBRK-WMGT activities; M. Richard Bolender, long with WBRK, as film director; Dan Healy, veteran sportscaster, as sports director for WBRK-WMGT; and Leonard L. Laven- dol, of North Adams, as chief engineer of the television station, in the designing and building of which he had played a large part.
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Radio Station W BEC
WBEC, Pittsfield's second radio station, made its initial broadcast on March 25, 1947. The facility, a corporate com- ponent of The Berkshire Eagle, had a long and tortuous gesta- tion period. As early as 1936 the city's only daily newspaper realized that the radio had supplanted the need for "extras" and was a valuable tool for the paper's own promotion, as well as for furnishing supplemental coverage in public service and entertainment.
The combination of opposition to its application before the Federal Communications Commission, however, was formid- able. Nearby stations objected, anticipating electronic interfer- ence. The disposition of the FCC was not to allow a monopoly newspaper also to control the only local radio voice. Applica- tion grants were frozen during the war years. All of this result- ed in WBEC coming on the air nearly 11 years after application was first made in Washington and nearly nine years after its local competitor, WBRK, began broadcasting.
With a 100-watt signal at 1,490 kilocycles, WBEC began its full-time operation as an affiliate of the American Broadcasting Company. James L. Spates of Presque Isle, Maine, who had had engineering service with a Greenfield radio station, became general manager of the 16-man organization. W. Wendell Budrow, advertising manager of the Eagle for 14 years, was the station's first commercial manager. Budrow succeeded Spates as general manager a year later. In July 1949, Spates resigned to establish and become part-owner of a station in West Springfield.
The studios and transmitter of WBEC were on the third floor of the Miller Building on the south side of Eagle Street, promptly dubbed the "WBEC Building." Signals were trans- mitted over a 190-foot tower erected at the rear of the building. Seven months after going on the air, the FCC allowed WBEC to increase its power to 250 watts. On April 30, 1948, WBEC added a 1,000-watt FM signal to its 250-watt AM transmission. Signals were sent out at a frequency of 94.3 megacycles through a transmitting unit mounted on top of the original AM tower,
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raising the mast to a height of 206 feet. Programs were dupli- cated through each transmitter, with occasional exceptions.
In the belief that static-free, high fidelity FM broadcasting might supplant AM transmission, the Eagle Publishing Com- pany purchased 14 acres of land on top of Washington Moun- tain in 1945 as a transmitter site to make possible regional cov- erage. Up through 1955, however, the land had not been used. Looking forward in another direction, WBEC purchased land in Windsor in 1952 as a television site, but the project has not been developed.
Progress for WBEC came in another direction. On June 7, 1956, the FCC granted WBEC a power increase to 1,000 watts on a frequency of 1,410 kilocycles. Prior to this grant, the WBEC building was marked for razing to provide space for a parking lot. WBEC went off the air for one day-December 7, 1955. The next day, it resumed broadcasting across the street from the remodeled third floor of the Eagle Building.
By 1957, WBEC hoped to be broadcasting over its new 1,000- watt transmitter, which will cover most of Berkshire County. Because of its higher power, Federal regulations required a transmitter site outside the center of the city. Accordingly, two 346-foot directional towers and transmitter buildings were erected in 1956 on a tract of swampy ground off Jason Street. The studios remained in the Eagle Building.
Chamber of Commerce
Pittsfield has several organizations uniting the general inter- ests of various businesses and professions. One of these is the Chamber of Commerce, which was born in the 1880s as the Board of Trade. By 1916 it had about 400 members. The Board was reorganized in 1919, at which time it changed its name to the Chamber of Commerce.
Through its standing committees-executive, membership, publicity, civic, industrial, mercantile, and transportation, among others-the Chamber brings to public attention matters of interest to the community, sponsors and helps organize civic events and celebrations of various kinds, endeavors to attract
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new businesses and industry to the city and, in general, seeks to maintain and promote the prosperity and welfare of Pittsfield. It employs a paid secretary and a small staff to carry on its functions.
Providing a meeting ground and a center of action for young- er business and professional people, the local chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1952 with more than a hundred attending the organizational meeting. The first president was Bernard E. Stelzenmuller. By its sponsorship and active promotion of various community projects, especially youth programs, the local organization has well carried out the founding principle of the Junior Chambers of Commerce across the land-that "service to mankind is the best work in life."
Pittsfield Industrial Development Company
The Pittsfield Industrial Development Company was or- ganized in 1919 by a group of local businessmen. This com- pany had as its first objective the buying of a large part of the extensive Allen stock farm off the Dalton road. The owner of the farm, William Russell Allen, had died a few years previous- ly and the 1,250-acre tract was being broken up and sold as small building lots.
Part of the Allen farm lay along the tracks of the Boston and Albany railroad, offering good sites for factories. The Pittsfield Industrial Development Company bought this part of the farm -264 acres-for the purpose of holding it intact for future industrial development. Almost all of this tract was later sold to General Electric for the expansion of its Morningside plant. "PID," as it is known, works in various ways to help main- tain existing industry and attract new industry to the city. Daniel England Jr. has been president of the company since 1946.
In 1955, General Electric shifted its manufacture of indus- trial heating equipment from Pittsfield and gave the building it had been using for such manufacture, a four-storied brick structure on Columbus Avenue, to the Pittsfield Industrial De- velopment Company to assist the latter in its efforts to attract
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new manufacturing concerns to the city and thus diversify its industry-a goal which the community generally recognized to be a highly desirable one.
Late in 1955, the Chamber of Commerce, the Pittsfield In- dustrial Development Company, and the Berkshire Hills Con- ference, which is a county-wide organization, decided to join forces in the field of promotion and of industrial and recreation- al planning. Each of the three organizations retained its identity and autonomy. John F. Downing, executive director of the Berkshire Hills Conference since 1953, was placed in charge of the joint program aimed at expanding the economy of the area, preserving its cultural assets, protecting its natural beauty, and bringing more diversified industry into the county scheme in a logical manner.
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XVIII
Morningside Becomes Electric
THE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, one of the great pro- ductive enterprises of our country and the world, celebrated in 1953 the 75th anniversary of its founding, and the 50th year of its operations in Pittsfield. Its 75th birthday occurred on Oc- tober 15, 1953. For the occasion, GE established a "baby derby," giving an award to any child born to a GE employee on that day. The idea for this derby came from William D. Haylon, born and educated in Pittsfield, at the time in the New York office of General Electric.
The wives of fifteen local GE employees "produced" on derby day. Each of the children received five shares of GE stock, worth at the time almost $400. Within a year, GE stock was split three shares for one, and each "baby derby" winner then had 15 shares. By the end of 1955, with the increase in the value of the shares, each lucky youngster had a nest egg of almost $900, having accumulated dividends in the meantime. One local Mrs. had a child just 34 minutes before "baby derby" day began-a most expensive "miss" !
The General Electric Company, the largest manufacturer of electrical equipment in the world, grew out of the work of Thomas A. Edison and other pioneers in the field. In 1878, Edi- son founded the Edison Electric Light Company at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he produced the first successful incandescent lamp. He established other small plants to make various elec-
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trical supplies, including the Edison Machine Works on Goerck Street in New York. Moving this plant to Schenectady in 1886, he combined it with other of his enterprises as the Edison Gen- eral Electric Company.
Two other pioneers, Professor Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston, combined their interests and in 1883 established the Thomson-Houston Electric Company at West Lynn, Massachu- setts. This plant was merged with the Schenectady plant in 1892 to form the General Electric Company.
The first multiple system of alternating current distribution in this country was designed by Professor Thomson in 1878. Soon, on an experimental basis, he installed some transformers to light one of the Thomson-Houston factories in Lynn. But this company, like that of Edison, continued to promote the use of direct current. William Stanley designed and operated this country's first commercial alternating current system in 1886 at Great Barrington, about twenty miles south of Pittsfield. In this project George Westinghouse provided financial backing.
Parting with Westinghouse, Stanley interested a group of Pittsfield men in starting a new venture. Under circumstances related earlier,* they formed in 1890 the Stanley Electric Man- ufacturing Company. Three months later, in a building off Clapp Avenue, the company completed its first transformers for use on the new alternating current systems that were rapidly increasing in number, size, and popularity.
Stanley was a genius who visualized the a-c concept and how it could be made to work. As associates, he had John F. Kelly, a noted engineer and inventor, who pioneered in developing sili- con steel alloys for magnetic transformer cores; and Cummings C. Chesney, the practical designer and executive who superin- tended the building of Stanley products for commercial use. To avoid the basic Tesla patents on so-called three-phase a-c sys- tems, these men developed an entirely new two-phase electrical system of generation, transmission, and use. Using the first letters of their names, they called it the S.K.C. system.
*Page 72
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Soon needing more space for building generators, transform- ers, motors, and other equipment, the company moved to an- other building on Clapp Avenue, then to a larger structure on the east side of Renne Avenue. The move to new Buildings 1, 2, and 3, off Woodlawn Avenue in the Morningside area, came at the turn of the century, when local financing became inade- quate, and outside capital was brought in. The business was merged with the Roebling interests, becoming the Stanley-G.I. Electric Manufacturing Company. The outstanding reputation established by the Stanley Company in the field of high voltage transmission had made it a formidable competitor of the General Electric Company.
The latter acquired the Stanley Company in 1903, operating it autonomously until 1907, when it was made the Pittsfield Works of the General Electric Company. All high-voltage trans- former work at Schenectady and Lynn was transferred to Pitts- field under Chesney, with Walter S. Moody, one of the Thom- son-Houston pioneers, as designing engineer. The next decade was a period of steady development, with transformers increas- ing in size and voltage. Small pole-type transformers, small single-phase motors, arc lamps, voltage regulators, high-voltage bushings, current limiting reactors, lightning arresters, fans, electric ranges, and other heating devices-all these came from the Morningside plant. In 1914, the first important high voltage laboratory was set up here. Ever since, Pittsfield has truly been the High Voltage Capital of the world.
Early in 1916, William Stanley died, after a long illness, at his home in Great Barrington. He was the first of the famous trio to go. His associate, John F. Kelly, lived until 1922; Ches- ney until 1947.
Before our entry into World War I and all during hostilities, the local plant made shell cases for Russia. The Screw Machine Department produced large quantities of fuse caps for shell heads and numerous other machine parts for military equip- ment. There was no other war work at the local plant, but nor- mal production of transformers, motors, and related equipment was quite essential to the war effort.
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In 1916, patriotic feelings rose high at the plant. Nine of its engineers were at the Officers Training Camp in Plattsburg, New York, and 51 of its men were serving with Company F at the Mexican Border. In the following year, many men en- tered the armed services. Employees aided fund raising for relief of war prisoners, and sale of Liberty Loans. Common need encouraged the planting of home "war gardens," the knitting of mittens by machine at the Red Cross, and the estab- lishment of a club for the cooperative purchase of coal by employees. Many women took the jobs of men in service, work- ing on punch presses, lathes, drills, milling, wire-covering, and winding machines, as well as operating overhead cranes.
The war speeded the development of a process for the elec- trical welding of steel plates for large transformer tanks. Pre- viously, they had been riveted and caulked. Much of the pioneer work in this field, subsequently used in shipyards, was done at the Pittsfield works under the general direction of Robert E. Wagner, Assistant Superintendent.
In product development, transformers became steadily larger, with new forms of cooling radiators for their tanks. A conserva- tor (auxiliary expansion tank) design was introduced to pre- vent the then prevalent deterioration of the cooling and insulat- ing oil inside the transformer, a method that established a high- er standard of transformer reliability.
A new form of lightning arrester, the oxide-film type, was developed at Pittsfield to protect large transformers from light- ning. This remained standard until superseded in 1930 by an even better design, the Thyrite arrester, which, with steady improvements, is the type still built here today.
The 1920s brought significant developments at Morningside in the field of higher voltages that made possible the transmis- sion of larger blocks of electric power over greater distances. Since 1913, the highest potential in service had remained at 150,000 volts. Early in 1921, the first 220,000 volt power trans- formers were tested and shipped to the Southern California Edi- son Company for bringing power to Los Angeles from hydro- electric plants many miles away in the mountains.
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An important local development in 1929 was the so-called "non-resonating" or "shielded" transformer, developed to a commercial basis by Konstantin K. Paluev from the 1915 theory and tests of J. Murray Weed, Louis F. Blume, John S. Lennox and Aram Boyajian. In these units, it was possible for the first time to know positively that lightning voltages reaching a trans- former would be absorbed uniformly throughout the structure, rather than piling up at some point and causing a failure of the insulation.
Transmission voltages remained in the so-called 230,000 volt class until 1934, when 287,500-volt units built in Pittsfield were sent to Boulder (now Hoover) Dam. The next record breaker was in 1947, when a 360,000-volt power transformer was built and tested to destruction in order to extend the frontiers of design knowledge available to Pittsfield engineers and skilled assemblers.
The 1920s also brought startling new gains in super high- voltages for testing the electrical strength of transformers and other equipment. In September 1921, for the first time, a 1,000,000-volt flash of man-made lightning was produced in the High Voltage Laboratory. Two years later, this was increased to 2,000,000 volts. In 1925, a chain-connected set of six trans- formers to produce this voltage was ordered by Leland Stan- ford University. The next jump was to 3,000,000 volts in 1930. This was used by Frank W. Peek, Jr. to make, for the first time, an impulse (lightning surge) test on a power transformer des- tined for use on a commercial power system.
In five more years, 10,000,000 volts had been reached, and an impressive demonstration was staged for Governor James M. Curley and his official family. Shortly thereafter, ten-million volt lightning strokes with Pittsfield-built equipment were made familiar to millions of people attending General Electric's ex- hibit at the New York World's Fair.
The most recent increase in test voltages was made in June 1949, when the present High Voltage Laboratory off Tyler Street was opened with Julius H. Hagenguth as manager. It remains the world's largest man-made lightning center. It can
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