Shreveport’s KWKH Radio Call Letters Celebrate 100th Birthday

It's an odd, winding story, but 100 years ago, the call letters KWKH first aired in the Shreveport area.

All angles of the story come from legendary radio pioneer W.K. Henderson (who that station is named after), who is the central point in the KWKH story. Even though Henderson didn't originate the station we're actually talking about, he's responsible for KWKH's debut.

Before we get to the origins of KWKH, we have to talk about another groundbreaking radio station.

In 1922, the station WDAN was launched in Shreveport by W.G. Patterson and his Glenwood Radio Corporation. Their originals broadcasts emanated from the campus of Centenary College in Shreveport. The power of the transmitter was just 10-watts (for reference, KWKH's current power is 50,000-watts), which was much more powerful when the airwaves weren't full of other noise with only dozens of station in the US broadcasting.

After a few months, WDAN was moved from Centenary to a new location, and they raised the power to 50-watts. At that point, WDAN became WGAQ.

At some point between the summer of 1922 and the end of 1924, W.K. Henderson became involved in the operations of WGAQ. By the time the calendar rolled into 2025, Henderson had majority control of the station, and moved the transmitter to a new location north of Shreveport.

When this move was made, Henderson debuted the call letters KWKH for the first time.

That version of KWKH is celebrating its 100th birthday. As Henderson debuted the KWKH call letters first broadcasted through Shreveport airwaves on January 8th, 1925.

However, this isn't actually the same KWKH that is on the air today...which is why we said this is an odd and winding story. The KWKH call letters that debuted on January 8th, 1925 would be replaced with KSBA in August of 1926 when W.G. Patterson would buy-back the majority ownership from Henderson. Those KSBA call letters would change again to KTBS in 1929, which is where they would stay until 1957. By 1957, the station adopted the call letters they are known by today...KEEL.

After Henderson sold his part of the station that is now know as KEEL, he put all of his effort behind the newly launched KWKH. This station would become a property known worldwide. It would host the Louisiana Hayride, where Elvis Pressley broke though to the mainstream, and eventually broadcast the words "Elvis has left the building" live from the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum.

On January 8th, we don't celebrate a station's birthday, but rather the call letters KWKH themselves. They debuted for the first time on that date, before finding their forever-home a few years later.