WSM Transmission Complex: history

              WSM Tower Transmission Complex
Text by Carroll Van West
The WSM Tower Transmission Complex, at 8012 Concord Road in Brentwood, Williamson County, Tennessee, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The 1932 “diamond” tower is a unique structure with a shape that allowed the radio station as one of the nation’s federally designated clear channels to broadcast to forty states a program of music, news, and public service geared to largely a rural and small town audience. The complex has state and national significance in the area of the military history of the Cold War era since it was one of the original stations that served a military/civil defense role in the CONELRAD system beginning in 1951.
As an engineering structure, the complex’s tower has national significance as an engineering marvel. The WSM Tower, at 808 feet, is the tallest Blaw-Knox Diamond Radio Tower in North America and is one of six similarly designed Blaw-Knox towers to have once existed in North America. Originally constructed at 878 feet in 1932, the tower was lowered by 70 feet in 1939 to improve radio transmission and reception. The tower was the third of four of its kind in the world [the others were in New Jersey (not extant); Budapest, Hungary (not extant), Brentwood, Tennessee, and Cincinnati, Ohio.] The WSM Tower is the oldest surviving intact example of this type of radio tower in the world.
Architecturally, the main building in the complex has local significance as an excellent example of a Colonial Revival design by Russell Hart of the locally prominent architectural firm of Hart, Freeland, Roberts.
Historical Background:
Radio broadcasting was still developing its national voice and presence at the time of the construction of the WSM Tower, which came at a time when consumers had stopped buying radio kits, which they had to put together, in favor of actual complete sets. WSM, which began broadcasting in 1925, had emerged as one of the region’s leading stations. It signed with the National Broadcasting Company in 1926 and began getting network shows out of New York City. The Grand Ole Opry broadcast name came in 1927 when broadcaster George Hay stated that “For the past hour, we have been listening to music from the grand opera; from now on, we will present the Grand Ole Opry.”1 The same year the radio station boosted its power to 5,000 watts and began to operate at 650 AM with clear channel status. The clear channel designation, meaning that only one station was authorized to broadcast at full power at night at a given frequency, was crucial to the station’s future. As one of 14 stations designated as clear channels nationally, WSM became classified as a Class I-A station, defined as “a dominant station, operating on a clear channel and designed to render primary and secondary service over an extended area and at relatively long distances.”2
1 Charles Wolfe, “The WSM Story,” Inside WSM: A Quarterly Newsletter (Fourth Quarter, 2000), 5. Additional information on the Grand Ole Opry and its influence on country music can be found in the NHL for the Ryman Auditorium.
2 “The Case for Clear Channels and High Power,” A Statement to the Federal Communications Commission, September 6, 1938, 4.