Blasterz know a very old radio broadcasting tower when they see one, but we were confused because we didn't see an attached radio station or a studio-transmiter link on the tower.
In Jan 2023, I discovered that I had not put all my 2019 vacation photos in folders, which is how I rediscovered my photo of this old tower. But as I looked on Google Eearth, the tower was gone. This piqued my curiosity, so I started digging.
Turns out, this 568-foot high tower was built in 1928 by radio station KGHL, then located at 1320khz on the radio dial, whose studios were (and still are) located in downtown Billings. KGHL was the first radio station in Billings, and at one time this tower was one of the tallest freestanding radio broadcast towers in the US.
From Wikipedia" (
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"KGHL (790 kHz) is an AM radio station broadcasting a classic country format licensed to Billings, Montana, United States. The station is currently owned by KGHL Radio LLC, which is owned by the Northern Broadcasting System and features programming from CBS News Radio, Compass Media Networks, and United Stations Radio Networks. KGHL's studios and offices are located in the Northern Broadcasting building on First Avenue North in downtown Billings; the transmitter is in Lockwood.
KGHL was the first radio station in Billings and remained dominant into the 1980s.
History
Billings's first, Billings's only
The Northwestern Auto Supply Company opened KGHL, broadcasting initially on 1350 kHz, on the evening of June 8, 1928; the first announcer heard over the station was Eric Thornton, who served as program director and was hired from KOIL in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The highlight of the inaugural program was a remote address by Governor John E. Erickson, speaking from the state capital of Helena; the equipment to enable the governor to deliver his remarks over the station was flown from Billings to Helena earlier that day in hazardous conditions, landing with an empty gasoline tank.
Original studios for the station were located on the third floor of the auto supply company's building in downtown Billings; with limited room, some bands played on the roof. Northwestern had begun selling radios in 1924, but without a local station, they found sales and radio demonstrations difficult in the Billings area, where only one station was reliably received, KFKX at Hastings, Nebraska.?
KGHL was not the first radio station to operate in the state of Montana—that distinction belongs to KFBB (now KEIN) in Great Falls, Montana—but its arrival marked the beginning of a new era in broadcasting in the state with the 1928 commissioning of a new 568-foot (173 m) self-supporting tower, one of the tallest in the United States at that time. The tower stood for 72 years until being demolished in 2020.
In 1929 KGHL brought the first network radio programming to Montana when it aired the NBC broadcast of Herbert Hoover's inauguration.?
Over the course of the 1930s and 1940s, KGHL grew substantially. After General Order 40 had assigned the station a new frequency of 950 kHz it raised its power to 500 watts in 1929 and then to 1,000 watts in 1930. The second power increase also included a transmitter move to a site outside of the city.
The next year, it became a full NBC affiliate, with the ability to air programming from NBC's Red and Blue networks or its then-separate Gold and Orange circuits on the West Coast.
In 1934, the station was allowed to operate experimentally on 780 kHz, which was extended until becoming permanent in 1936. Further technical boosts came later in the 1930s with a final power increase to 5,000 watts in 1938.? NARBA moved KGHL, and other stations on 780, to 790 kHz in 1940."
A little more digging turned up this story on the KHMK-FM 103.7 website: (
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"ICONIC BILLINGS RADIO TOWER COMES DOWN
The first thing I noticed Monday while driving into work from Laurel is that the iconic KGHL AM radio tower was no longer standing. As a "radio guy" I kind of geek out a little bit on stuff like this, so bear with me.
Legend has it that this radio tower was the tallest freestanding broadcast tower west of the Mississippi for a long time. Freestanding, meaning it did not have any guy wires helping support the tower. It supposedly held the tallest record until sometime in the early 2000s, when it was surpassed by a TV station in North Dakota. I spent a few minutes poking around the internet and couldn't find concrete proof of this claim, but that story has been told to me by numerous radio people over the years and I tend to believe it.
This tower was massive. A whopping 568 feet tall. The span of the tripod legs is easily 20+ feet at the base. When I stopped by to snap a couple of quick pictures before the remnants of the tower completely disappear, I was lucky enough to catch the owner of the property on-site. An older gentleman whose son now runs the Vermeer Equipment company, he shared some great stories with me about the tower, most of which I've already heard and a few that I can't really share with you.
The tower has not been used for a handful of years (ever since KGHL moved locations to Lockwood). The property/tower owner said with the recent small plane crash north of Billings, they felt the time was right to tear it down for liability reasons. He said they were approached by a company to do the demolition and the price tag came in at $100,000. He figured since they have the equipment and manpower at Vermeer, that they would just do it themselves. Classic Montanan.
Anyway, I'll kinda' miss looking to the south of the interstate by Zoo Drive every day and seeing that big, beautiful, freestanding beacon of Billings radio history."
Us too.