Buford's First Radio Station: A Research Tale

Buford's First AM Radio Station:

I love research. If I had taken a slightly different path in life, I would have loved to have become a research librarian at the Smithsonian. Maybe that's one of the reasons I find volunteering at the Museum of Buford so satisfying--it gives me plenty of opportunity to investigate history in a  hands on way. Just recently, in fact, I was given a task by Curator Lynn Bowman to research the birth of Buford's first AM radio station, WDMF.

Now, it's not as though the museum didn't know about the radio station. We knew it had existed, we knew where and approximately when it was in operation. But what we mostly knew about WDMF was that it was sold in the 1960s and the call letters were changed at that time. So why the sudden need to find out more? Well...

Visitors often bring donations to the museum...old family photos, articles and artifacts from Buford's past. This time the donation was information. While visiting the MOB recently, Sue Diamond shared with Lynn that her uncle, Robert Adamson, in association with Charles Conklin, may have helped fund Buford's first radio station around 1956. The name of the station's owner may have been Robert Schuessler. Some further information, a few scribbled notes, and I was set to my task. Establish and verify the dates,  names and anything else I could find on the inception of WDMF.

I started my search with the resources at hand. Historic Buford verified that WDMF was purchased in 1964 by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Joseph and became WDYX at that time. A search through some of the old phone books in the museum library showed that WDMF had been located on Harmony Road in 1958. And a late 1950s business card in the "Bits of Buford" display case told me that Harold Pindley  had been both a salesman and an announcer for the station. All good, interesting information, but none of it really gave me the facts I was looking for.

Naturally, I turned to the internet, the researcher's tool of choice these days. I started with a basic search--the call letters, the names of people involved--and though I didn't come up with anything specific right away, I certainly found a place to start, The Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. That link led me to the Georgia State University Library site and the WSB Radio History archives. Not finding anything specific, I sent a query off to the GSU Special Collections and Archives email address listed on the page.

While I waited for a reply I renewed my search, again looking at the basics. One thing I've learned about research over the years, if you really want to find something, look at every citation listed for the subject. Every one of them. You never know what you might find, what little fact or story may reveal itself. This paid off by leading me to americanradiohistory.com and a scanned pdf  file of the Jan. 1, 1959  national SRDS Consumer Market records of  existing radio stations and their statistics, broken down by state. Now I was getting somewhere! There in the Georgia section was WDMF, Buford, with not only the citation that it was established in 1956, but also it's operating schedule, what it charged advertisers for radio time ($8 for a one time 5 minute spot), and even a  bit about it's programming:

"Local News every hour; Noon Roundup and Farm Market Reports; Audience telephone participation shows. Pop and Hillbilly, 44 Hours week country, western and gospel music." 

Still, I hadn't quite finished my research goal--to find a date for the establishment of the station, as well as verify that Robert Schuessler and the others Sue Diamond had mentioned were connected to WDMF. Within a day, however, an email response from UGA brought me information I needed,  forwarded to them from right where I had begun my search, the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame:

"Granted License on December 10, 1956WDMF--Buford--1956

Frequency 1480 Kc......Power: 1 Kw....

WDMF Buford GA: Seeks assignment of license from David and Madeleine Fleagle d/b as Gwinnett Co. Bestg. Co to Lanier Bestg. Co for $62,000. New Owners, equal partners, are C.S. Conklin, banker, and R. L. Schuessler of Hollingbery Co. Announced Aug. 6" 

All the facts and dates in black and white, ready to be recorded in a future volume of the history of Buford. (see photo section with this post).

From the Museum Library:

As I mentioned above, in my search for information about Buford's radio station I made use of the old phone books available in the museum library. The collection isn't large, and the years represented are sporadic, but the information in them is invaluable. Old addresses, old business names, and the yellow pages filled with ads, are all extremely helpful in historical and genealogical research. Even if you aren't researching anything, the books make fascinating reading.

The oldest phone books that we have on the museum shelves are photocopies of the original Gainesville City Directories, 1913/14 & 1918. Buford listings are included. Telephones in homes  hadn't quite found common usage during those years, so the earliest of these directories doesn't contain home phone numbers, and very few numbers for businesses are listed either. What  the directories do include are not only names and addresses of  heads of household, but also ethnicity, occupation, and in some cases, the size of the home. Spouses names are listed in parentheses. Not thinking beyond my modern viewpoint  it actually took me awhile to figure out what those (always feminine) names were. Nicknames, perhaps? "Wow, how interesting," I thought upon reading Grant, Edw (Essie), traveling salesman. "A female traveling salesperson during those days! I'd love to research the story behind that!"

Rebecca