ORIGINS OF RADIO BROADCASTING IN DALLAS AND FORT WORTH

Charles Henry Garrett may not be a household name to Texans, but his fascination with electronics inadvertently earned him a permanent place in the history of not only Texas, but also the history of radio broadcasting in the United States. 

The seed of Garrett’s fascination with wireless was planted in 1912.  Henry, or “Dad” as he was often referred to, was an electrical engineer for the Dallas Fire Department.  A huge fire broke out at a lumber company on the south side of Dallas.  So large was this fire that every member of the fire department was called to the scene.  At the same time, a blaze erupted on the opposite end of the city.  With telephone lines destroyed at the lumber company, it was impossible to alert the firefighters that there was another fire now on the rampage.  Garrett knew the power that the "wireless telegraph" that he'd heard about could have had in that situation.  With the right equipment, those firefighters could have been alerted to the second fire, even  without telephone lines.

In the following years, Garrett spent his free time experimenting with homemade receivers incorporated into the frame of his car.  He eventually succeeded in receiving weak voice transmissions in his car at a distance of five miles from the central fire station – Garrett knew he was on to something big. 

By the late 1910’s, there were already a few radio amateurs experimenting with wireless transmissions:  Frank M. Corlett of Eighth Street operated three amateur stations (5ZC, 5XG and 5ZG) between 1919 and 1922.  (The Department of Commerce had divided the nation into several districts; amateurs were given call signs that started with the number of the district in which they were located.)   Bennett Emerson of Wendelkin Street began 5DU in 1920.  Henry Garrett himself received a license for 5NY in 1921.

Garrett equipped Dallas’ fire units with his homemade receivers, and enlisted the help of his fellow radio amateurs to broadcast fire calls with their sets -- the fire department would not be caught off guard again.  However, this setup proved to be too disjointed, especially when the police department joined the fire company in broadcasting its calls.  It became clear that there needed to be one single operation to send out the emergency calls.

As the head of the city’s Police and Fire Signal Department, Garrett convinced the City of Dallas fund the purchase of its own radio equipment dedicated to broadcasting fire and police calls.  In July 1921, the City of Dallas purchased Bennett Emerson’s wireless equipment for $250, and charged Garrett with the duties of setting up a wireless radio station for the purpose of broadcasting police and fire calls.  The equipment that once existed as 5DU was installed on the second floor of the Dallas Fire Hall at 2012 Main Street, and soon WRR - and broadcasting in north Texas - was born.

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