It had been talked about in my childhood, Walla Walla, at one time, had a broadcast TV station based in the town. Now, many of my contemporaries will remember cable channel 13, this was a local access channel available to subscribers of what was then Teleprompter TV Cable. I believe it was required at that time by the FCC. That is not what we are talking about.
Walla Walla had an FCC licensed TV station with the call letter KNBS. It was on channel 22, I'm sure if it was on cable, it had an additional lower channel. Popular western actor and former baseball player, Chuck Connors was involved in the management.
Puget Sound Media a radio/tv blog did a post on TV station license applications, which stoked the memory for me of this mostly forgotten Walla Walla entity.
Sources say that KNBS was on the air January 3 of 1960 to December 14th of the same year. I was only 3 at the time it went off the air.
You can see Mike Cherry's great article on KNBS here.
5 comments:
Thank you Mike for this great informative post. I remember Channel 13 but I did not know all this other information about it including that Chuck Connors was associated with it. This is yet another great post.
Connors was not associated with channel 13, that was just a closed circuit access station.
Is there some association between Chuck Connors and Walla Walla? Did he live there at one time? http://wallawalladrazanphotos.blogspot.com/2015/08/chuck-connors-1950s-star-of-tv-show.html
I remember watching it. Kirby Grant...Sky King...was supposed to have been at the station for a kid's show. I wanted to go see him (my hero), but don't know if he ever got here. But I do remember the station at the time.
Regarding Conners, I'm not sure. I guess that he thought it was a Western type town.
Also, as you pointed out, Bing Crosby was tied in the industry. Very few actors have been associated with the town, but when they are, the city seems to cling to them.
Walter Brennen had land in nearby Wallowa, OR. The ties between Adam West and Walla Walla are legendary. Kurt Russell played baseball for the Walla Walla Islanders. Actor Kyle Maclachlan has a winery in the town.
Post a Comment