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| KFSG LA Setting Straight
Pioneer L. A. Christian Station Stops Broadcasting After 79 Years
by Jim Hilliker
SETTING HISTORY STRAIGHT
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KFSG Towers 1920s
© Jim Hilliker Collection
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I'd like to share with you what I believe is KFSG's legacy all these years
later, along with a few stories about KFSG from its first decade, that
have become popular in radio history books and on the internet over the
years. Many of these have grown into legendary status since the
1920s, while others may have been forgotten.
But, I also want to set history straight. Despite the public relations
machine of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel promoting
KFSG all these years, my research has found some facts about the
station that may not make the higher-ups at the I.C.F.G. happy. I
hope by bringing up these historical discoveries, I may be able to bury
the false statements that have been published about KFSG for these many
decades. However, in 2003, it might be too late now for many
people, including the biographers, historians and the church, to take
notice or care about changing their outdated stories on KFSG. But
I'll present my findings, anyway. Here they are:
First, KFSG was NOT the 1st religious radio station in the nation
and it was NOT the 1st religious station on the air in Los
Angeles. The first religious radio station on the air in this
country was WDM radio, owned and operated by Church of the Covenant in
Washington, D.C. WDM was licensed on December 22, 1921 and had
its first broadcast on January 1, 1922. This station only lasted
a bit over 3 years, as WDM was deleted on June 8, 1925. Not far
behind WDM was KJS-Los Angeles (King Jesus Saves) in March of 1922,
which became KTBI-Los Angeles in July 1925, owned by the Bible
Institute of Los Angeles, now known as Biola University in La Mirada.
(The station was sold in 1931 and became KFAC). KJS/KTBI was the
second religious radio station in this country and the first in Los
Angeles.
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KFSG Letterhead
© Jim Hilliker Collection
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When I tried to explain this to the folks at KFSG and
ICFG headquarters some years ago, I received a letter saying, "Of the
four known religious stations prior to KFSG, none continued as
religious stations beyond 1931." I guess their belief is, even if WDM
and KJS were on the air first, two years prior to KFSG going on the air
as a religious station, it doesn't count, because they both went
off the air by 1931! That's ridiculous. You can't change
history and the truth is that WDM and KJS/KTBI did start their radio
ministries first. However, after going on the air in 1924,
KFSG did become a very important pioneering Christian station with a
huge following in its early years, that seemed to overshadow other
religous radio stations of that time. Up until its demise this
year, it was the oldest operating religious station in the nation. Its
total years on the air on AM and FM had made it the 5th
oldest radio station in Los Angeles. Moving into the number 5 slot now
is KLAC, with a license dating back to March of 1924.
Second, it's also easy to figure out that KFSG was NOT the 3rd radio
station on the air in Los Angeles, as has been claimed in several books
on Aimee Semple McPherson, related Web sites and on the KFSG Web
site. In 1922 alone, two years before KFSG started broadcasting,
L.A. stations KNX, KJS, KHJ, KFI and a few others had already taken to
the airwaves! That's at least 4 stations on the air in
1922. In chronological order, KFSG was the 21st radio
station license issued within the Los Angeles city limits, and the 12th
to actually go on the air with a regular broadcasting schedule.
So, how can KFSG and the church that founded and owned the station,
possibly claim it was only the 3rd radio station to go on
the air in Los Angeles?? I believe it's because the church
and/or the writers of those books never bothered to check the facts
related to radio history in Los Angeles, when KFSG was
established.
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Aimee Semple McPherson ca 1924
© Jim Hilliker Collection
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Also, Aimee's son who turned 90 in March 2003, Dr.
Rolf K. McPherson, sent me information via an ICFG secretary in an
email 3 years ago. He was 11-years-old when KFSG began. He
said at that time, he played around with a radio he built himself, but
never heard anything besides KFI, KHJ and his mother's station, KFSG.
So, perhaps, that's where this inaccurate statement originated!
Third, KFSG owner Aimee Semple McPherson was NOT the first woman in the United
States to hold a radio license or own a radio station in 1924.
That was Marie Zimmerman, who owned and operated radio station WIAE in
Vinton, Iowa in 1922 and 1923. However, she did co-own the
station with her ham radio husband and Marie was a ham radio operator
too. But the name on the WIAE license as owner was Mrs. Robert E.
Zimmerman. (Source: Article by radio historian Donna Halper on
"Marie Zimmerman--Broadcasting's First Female Owner"). However,
to be entirely fair, when Mrs. Zimmerman's station went off the air, it
was still extremely rare for a woman to own and operate a radio
broadcasting station. That means it was quite likely that
McPherson was still the only woman at that time to own a station, which
may have been the case for many years. She was also most
certainly the first woman to own and operate a Christian radio station.
Finally, I wanted to clear up some false information given in a book by one of
McPherson's biographers in 1993. The author stated that every
morning, Aimee Semple McPherson broadcast a program over KFSG called
"The Sunshine Hour" at 7 a.m. Another book said this show went on
at 6 am. The problem I have with that statement is that it's not
true. While Aimee did host a daily show on KFSG known as the
"Sunshine Hour", it was actually on from 10:30 to 11 a.m., according to
the KFSG program schedules I checked in magazines and newspapers from
1925 through 1928. The author also said that on June 29, 1925, a
major earthquake struck Santa Barbara at 6:44 am, which is true.
The 6.3 magnitude quake killed 13 and injured 65.
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Aimee Semple McPherson and Kenneth G. Ormiston
© Jim Hilliker Collection
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But, the book
said that Aimee got a call from someone in Santa Barbara asking for
help. She then reportedly ran from her home into Angelus Temple
to interrupt the morning broadcast in progress. Aimee supposedly
grabbed the microphone to tell listeners to help out those affected by
the quake by driving cars and truck filled with supplies, blankets,
medicines, food, etc. to Santa Barbara. The problem with that
story is it may not be true or accurate. That's because June 29,
1925 was a Monday, and KFSG was off the air or silent every Monday and
was not broadcasting that day! Even if KFSG had been on that day,
it didn't go on until 10:30 a.m. Still, it may be possible Aimee
was able to get the station on the air to alert listeners about the
quake. But, checking the Los Angeles Times for the
next day, June 30, there were several stories about the
earthquake. The KHJ daily listing and related article also told
of how that station updated listeners occasionally on Monday, but I
could not find any mention of KFSG going on the air or any credit given
to McPherson and her listeners for helping during the emergency.
SISTER AIMEE AND HER CHURCH
My main focus will be on what I see as arguably KFSG's most popular years,
1924 to 1928. As I stated earlier, KFSG was founded by the
dynamic, and at times, controversial female evangelist, Aimee Semple
McPherson (1890-1944). Her story has been told numerous times in
at least 7 biographies published over the years, along with several Web
sites that tell about her life and times. She founded the
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a Pentecostal mission,
and settled in Los Angeles in 1918. (The church was officially
incorporated as a Protestant denomination in 1928). Between, 1920
and 1922, Aimee traveled with her mother on a non-stop series of
evangelistic services. The purpose of those trips was to preach the
word of God and raise money to build her home church in the Echo Park
area of L.A., at 1100 Glendale Boulevard. With the cash
donations, her 5300-seat church, Angelus Temple, opened on January 1,
1923 for $1.2 million dollars. It was dedicated to service and
was debt-free. One year later, the church would boast its own
radio station.
Sister Aimee, as her followers called her, was no stranger to innovation and
controversy. Married three times, she was widowed and divorced
twice. Her third marriage took place, even though it was against
her religion to marry if a divorced spouse was still alive. One
Web site on her life claims that Aimee McPherson's weakness was men and
that she had several affairs, some discrete and some not so
discrete. Even the vaudeville comedian Milton Berle, later of
early television fame, wrote in his 1974 autobiography that he had sex
with Aimee on two occasions in 1930, at an out-of-the-way apartment she
owned near the beach. She approached him following a charity show
they both took part in at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A., while Berle
was booked for a few days at a downtown Los Angeles vaudeville
theater. Aimee was then 40 and the young Berle was only 22.
When she married for the third time in 1931, Aimee eloped with
30-year-old David Hutton, a singer she met when he took part in one of
her biblical spectacles. Their marriage lasted less than 3
years. In 1936, there was a story that reported her being
blackmailed by someone who threatened to release nude photos of
her. Yet amid all these incidents of scandal, rumor and gossip,
Sister Aimee survived partly by presenting herself to her followers as
a repentant sinner.
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KFSG QSL card ca 1940
© Jim Hilliker Collection
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As an innovator, she and her mother were reportedly the first two women to
travel alone across the U.S. in their car. Aimee introduced
popular slang and jazz music into the church during the 1920s and
sometimes would change the words of popular songs of the day, but would
sing them with the same tune for her church services. One
example: A 1925 song called "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" was changed by
Aimee to "Yes Sir, That's My Jesus." Being close to Hollywood
fascinated her, too. She popularized the use of church sermons
which were illustrated and dramatized through elaborate stage plays,
which the press said were very much like vaudeville shows. Her
Angelus Temple stage was supposedly designed by the early film
superstar Charlie Chaplin, who told Aimee, "Whether you like it or not,
you're an actress in show business now." The famous stage shows
in Angelus Temple rivaled what Hollywood and Broadway had to
offer. Because of that, the shows Aimee presented attracted
people who would never have thought about going inside a church.
Once inside, they were entertained with her message of salvation.
Once, after getting a traffic ticket, she rode onto the Angelus Temple
stage on a police motorcycle, wearing a Los Angeles police officer's
uniform. Her message was for the audience to stop and obey God's
laws! Also, instead of the hellfire and damnation style of
preaching of a Billy Sunday, Aimee preached about a God who loves us.
She substituted a "sunnier religion" for a "gospel of fear."
With her personality and style of preaching, Aimee turned the religious
establishment of that time upside down. In fact, many of the male
preachers didn't like her and wouldn't accept a woman as pastor of a
church. (One Methodist preacher, "Fighting Bob" Shuler (not
related to Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral fame) had his own radio
station, KGEF from 1926 to 1931. He had a regular feud, on and
off the air, with Aimee, from his Trinity Methodist Church in downtown
L.A. He constantly denounced McPherson and her ministry, along
with denouncing gambling, political corruption and alcohol, while going
on the air, naming the sinners in Los Angeles. Shuler later lost
his radio station. The Federal Radio Commission revoked Shuler's
license for KGEF in 1931, but that's another story). Mrs.
McPherson was written about in newspapers and magazines and was called
everything from "the Barnum of religion" to "the Mary Pickford of
revivalism." She also managed to find and keep followers, despite
the various scandals that played havoc with her life. But, her
church services and sermons in the 1920s were shows in every sense of
the word, and she did her best to bring that same excitement of being
inside Angelus Temple in person to her radio audience.
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Jim Hilliker
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Jim Hilliker is a radio historian and former broadcaster. He has
written a number of articles on the history of broadcasting in Los
Angeles. He currently lives in Monterey, California.
This article is © 2003 - Jim Hilliker
Interested in reading more about LA Radio personalities? Buy Don Barrett's Los Angeles Radio People available through The Emporium Radio Heritage Store © and support the Radio Heritage Foundation.
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 "KFSG Towers 1920s")
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 "Aimee Semple McPherson")
 "Aimee Semple McPherson and Kenneth G. Ormiston")
