KBLU: Yuma's radio legacy

Before television, radio was king of the airwaves, and Yuma had its very own broadcast royalty.

KYUM first signed on the air and into history on March 3, 1940, on AM 1210. KYUM was located at 1901 W. 1st St., which is now a private residence.

Richard Davis remembers it well. As a kid growing up in Yuma during the late 1940s and early ’50s, he would often lounge in his family's living room listening to radio dramas, comedies and news, dreaming of adventures in far-off places.

Davis, who moved to Yuma from Michigan in 1948 at age 7, listened to the station as a child, and said radio was a huge part of everyone's home life.

"Back in those days I can remember laying on the floor in the living room. The radio was usually the biggest piece of furniture in the house. There was nothing to see, but that is how important it was."

He described radio as a window to the world.

"At the time it was the only connection. You had all your news mostly from the radio and newspapers. Every program had an engineer and an announcer, and they would play records or whatever else they wanted to do."

Davis said he used to enjoy listening to the stories on the radio.

"That’s basically what radio was back then. I liked the programs like 'Hopalong Cassidy' and 'The Lone Ranger.' Those were some of my favorite programs. They didn’t have disc jockeys, it was like television is today with programs and newscasters. A lot of music was live, and they went to different hotels around the country to pick up the live bands remotely."

One of his favorite programs for kids aired live from the Yuma Theatre on Saturday mornings called "Square Shooters."

KYUM eventually evolved into KBLU 560 AM in 1969. After 70 years on air, the radio station is now located in a building at 755 W. 28th St. It operates as a talk radio station owned by El Dorado Broadcasters LLC, which also operates Star 100.9 FM and KTTI 95.1 FM.

KYUM has played a large part in Yuma's history, Davis said.

"KYUM was also very instrumental in putting together the City of Yuma Endurance Flight. The general manager of the station back then, Ray Smucker, was a great go-getter and promoted Yuma the best he could and even has a park named after him today."

The flight would set a world record in 1949 when two local pilots flew a single-engine aircraft nonstop from Aug. 24 to Oct. 10, a 47-day ordeal.

Davis spoke fondly of Smucker.

"He had a morning program Monday through Friday called the 'Sunny Side of the Street.' One of the features of his program was the 'Mouse Song' and he would describe all these little mice coming out and getting around the microphone and they would sing a little song. It was just a record speeded up, but he made it sound so real you could almost see the mice."

Davis ended up working at the station for more than three decades.

"Officially I started at KYUM full time in 1969. It was my first paying job. I worked there 35 years, and it was my favorite station."

According to Davis, the radio station was quite advanced for its time.

"They had a big control room with a big transmitter and big tubes that glowed, and that was where all the audio was controlled.

"Back then, everything was tubes so equipment was pretty big. They had a big studio ... with an organ and a piano and they could do bands or orchestras. Then they had smaller studio that was built for announcing interviews."

According to Davis, at the time, the station used a technology that was like a grandfather to the modern Internet to get broadcasts from abroad.

"It used to be mostly network programs and they also had a state network of the Arizona Broadcasting System, which came in from Phoenix.

"The stations back then were all hooked by telephone lines. Not lines like you would have your telephone plugged into, but special lines that AT&T set up specially for broadcasting. The NBC programs came from Los Angeles to Yuma over telephone wires. The big networks were all called webs."

The stations had to broadcast live because recordings weren't really an option in the early days of KYUM, Davis said. He noted that the technology for magnetic recording tape was invented by the Germans and wasn't brought to the U.S. until after World War II.

"Radio stations didn't get tape recorders until about 1950. Most of it was used for delaying broadcasts, because some of the shows would come from New York and they would delay them on tape to play them back at a better time out here. You could buy a new car for less money than you could get the first tape recorders for."

According to Davis, the radio station wasn't a 24-hour broadcast like it is today.

"Oh no, not at first. They'd sign on at like 7 in the morning and then sign off at night. Most of the stations were like that. Back then everybody did about the same thing at the same time. There were no 24-hour markets. Stores closed at 8 at night, and you could fire a cannon down 4th Avenue and not hit anybody."

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Chris McDaniel can be reached at cmcdaniel@yumasun.com or 539-6849.