WGN Radio 100th Anniversary Resolution
WHEREAS, WGN Radio has been the 50,000-watt voice of "Chicago's Very Own" for 100 years, and the station serves Chicagoland and the Midwest with news, talk, sports, and is currently located at 303 E. Wacker Drive; and
WHEREAS, Over the years, the station has also been headquartered at the Wrigley Building, The Drake Hotel, Tribune Tower, and the WGN Mid-America Broadcast Center at Bradley Place; and
WHEREAS, WGN Radio's origins trace back to May 19, 1922, when two young Chicagoans and radio enthusiasts named Thorne Donnelley and Elliott Jenkins signed on with the call letters WDAP from the Wrigley Building; and
WHEREAS, Under the leadership of Col. Robert McCormick, the call letters WGN, "World's Greatest Newspaper", were obtained from a Great Lakes skipper in 1924 and an association with WDAP began; and
WHEREAS, On May 31, the station was the first to broadcast what is now known as the Indy 500, then called the Memorial Day 500, and during the seven-hour race coverage, listeners heard a new station identification: "This is WDAP, soon to be WGN;" and
WHEREAS, On June 1, 1924, the new name was made official when announcer Elliott Jenkins came on-air with the words "This is WGN, formerly WDAP;" and
WHEREAS, WGN was a trailblazer in the early days of radio - being the first station of note to carry the Memorial Day 500 and the first to broadcast a regular season baseball game in 1925; and
WHEREAS, WGN set a record for long distance remote broadcasts in 1932 and delivered the first live broadcast of a courtroom trial in American history: The Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, "the trial ofthe century;" and
WHEREAS, WGN radio announcer and later its general manager Quin Ryan reflected upon these groundbreaking broadcasts saying, "We broadcast these things because somebody had to do it, and we decided to be the first to do it;" and
WHEREAS, Over the years, station programming has included live music with big band orchestras, ...
Click here for full text