Shreveport’s KWKH helped pioneer radio broadcasting

Will K. Henderson Jr. had his hands full running the largest iron works business in the South during the summer of 1922 in addition to being the vice president of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, and thought little of the latest craze starting to sweep the country, something called “radiophone broadcasting,” or simply “radio.” Local car dealer Bill Patterson had just interested the owners of the Shreveport Times and Hotel Youree in the little radio station he’d started over at Centenary College and hoped Henderson would join the partnership, but a demonstration overrun with static interference instead drew the ire of the busy industrialist.

Bill Patterson left that day defeated, but he remained persistent. “Mr. Patterson continued to dog me,” Will later related. “He became a pest, asking me to assist him to save radio for Shreveport and the Southland.”

The following year, as radio proved itself, Will Henderson finally saw promise in the medium and bought a quarter interest in Patterson’s WGAQ, eventually buying out the other partners in 1925 and changing the station’s call letters to reflect his initials, Shreveport’s still operating KWKH.

Over the next eight years, Will K. Henderson Jr. became obsessed with radio and built KWKH into a cottage industry and himself into a national icon with his sign-on catchphrase of “Hello, world, doggone you!” becoming part of the national fabric. He began staying up all hours of the night, “getting the people told,” and he instructed his engineers to increase the power and reach of his station no matter what the government had to say. In 1926, the Radio Act went into effect, eventually giving birth to the FCC, both efforts established in part to try and regulate the colorful language of Henderson and criminalize the unauthorized use of power that had earned KWKH listener response cards from as far away as Hawaii. Henderson ruled the South as the nation’s first “shock jock,” ranting against the government and the proliferation of chain stores and big box retailers he forecasted would soon destroy mom-and-pop businesses across America.

The brains behind KWKH belonged to Henderson’s gifted engineer, William Erwin Antony, who had a hand in establishing the first 26 radio stations in Shreveport, including the world’s first church-owned station and the model for the first police use of in-car broadcasting in the nation. Because the government favored live music when considering power increases, Henderson instructed Antony to devise a way to fool them so he could keep spinning records and taking requests as KWKH became the most popular station in the South. Antony invented the system of two turntables that modern-day mixologists rely on to fade from one record to the next and was the first to broadcast directly from the needle in a ruse that took the FCC five years to discover. He and fellow KWKH personality Paul Carriger also created the first television station in the South, broadcasting from Giddens Castle near Minden in the late 1920s. The Henderson team pioneered the in-air refueling techniques still used by the Air Force today, and Antony designed and built the radio detonators for the atomic bombs used to end World War 2.

Henderson eventually blamed the government and “those daylight burglars on Wall Street” for the Great Depression and took to selling all manner of products over the air to fund his fight against the proliferation of chain stores.

W.K. Henderson Jr.

He was the first to pioneer direct sales, which we still see today on QVC and other stations. The first of these products was “Hello World Coffee”. At a time when coffee could be had for less than 50 cents a pound, Henderson was hawking his for $1.00 a can and getting it! He sold more than one million cans during the height of the Depression, and I’m happy to say, in honor of his achievement, “Hello World Coffee” will return to retail next summer.

Global Media Archives, in partnership with Santa Fe NFTs, are bringing back this best-selling brew.

“After learning about the incredible life and stories of W. K. Henderson, we thought this would be a huge opportunity to relaunch the brand on the blockchain and introduce a whole new generation to the Henderson universe,” said Santa Fe co-founder Jeff Keenan. “This is just the start.”

Ten years to the day from the first broadcast of KWKH, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss. and 20 years later, he celebrated his birthday on the stage of the Louisiana Hayride, a radio show originating from W. K. Henderson’s creation, KWKH. Had it not been for the rantings of “Old Man” Henderson and his determination to put Shreveport on the map, the world may have missed out on Elvis and the music that became rockabilly, that became rock ‘n’ roll.

And Shreveport is “where it all began.”

Hello World Coffee will return to retail next summer.