Roscoe’s Radio Days
Young and driven in roaring twenties Denver, my great-grandfather Roscoe Stockton was school principal by day, and by night, he gathered with local creatives, often in his own living room, to develop radio programming for KOA.
Young and driven in roaring twenties Denver, my great-grandfather Roscoe Stockton was school principal by day, and by night, he gathered with local creatives, often in his own living room, to develop radio programming for KOA.
By the spring of 1925, affable Freeman H. Talbot was hired as KOA’s first Program Manager. On Talbot’s resumé was the founding of Denver Music Week each May, which broadcast its sixth annual celebrations over KOA.
Radio was pioneer territory and everything that could be broadcast, from conversational Spanish to relaxation exercises to bird calls to battles over classical and jazz music (some were convinced that jazz was a fad on the wane) carried over airwaves into homes. People were turning to radio for road conditions, sports scores, and livestock reports.
In an instant, the world was connected. On May 26, 1926, KOA Denver broadcast across the seas, transmitting in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, the Philippines, and Malaysia. “Internationalism will be the keynote of this all-night offering,” Talbot explained. “In this connection, we have arranged to flash messages of greeting by representatives of the various countries. These will be given in the native tongue of the several nationalities.” The broadcast included seven hours of music and a beloved speech by Judge Lindsey.
In our modern age, it is difficult to imagine a time when we couldn’t instantly broadcast around the world, but this was new, mind blowing territory in 1926. Many were concerned about the number of hours young people were spending around a radio. It would surely warp their young minds and turn them into idle do nothings. With every age of new technology, there is a fearful cry from the older generation. Even the dawn of the novel elicited similar mind-numbing idleness concerns.
The October 27, 1928 edition of Radio Doings included a peek into what it was like to first own a radio: “While in Los Angeles recently, I bought me a second-hand two-tube radio set for $3.00, brought it home and got it in operation two weeks ago tonight. It is the first one we have ever had in our family, and we feel that for one of so humble an origin it is a mighty performer. The first station we got was our own valley, KGEN. That delighted us and had we been able to get no more, we would have felt that we had had our money’s worth. On the first night I turned the dial and heard “KOA, Denver.” All the family came running but were quite skeptical until they, too, listened and believed. We stayed up, enchanted, until midnight…”
KOA Radio’s first Dramatic Director was Iris Ruth Pavey (Gilmore), who was in charge of the KOA Players, creators of radio dramas, operas, and musicals. Lewis H. Chernoff was the first director of the KOA Orchestra. My great grandparents, Roscoe and Pansy, got their radio start working with Talbot, Pavey, and Chernoff, providing their literary, dramatic, and musical talents wherever they could. Pansy quickly gained a reputation as the “It Girl” whenever a crying baby was needed.
In 1928, Morey Mercantile Company formed a group of singers to promote their brand: Solitaire Coffee. They were an immediate success on KOA radio. Roscoe wrote for the show, taking the part of Solly the foreman of the Flying M Ranch. Roscoe’s friend Estelle Philleo, composer of the well-known Out Where the West Begins, created songs specifically for the Solitaire Cowboys.
In 1961, after fifty years with the Morey Mercantile Company, historian William L. Myatt wrote a history of the company for The Colorado Magazine:
“This was one of the very first of the ‘Westerns’ or cowboy shows. It was purely a local show but with a huge audience in the West, since KOA in those days reached from Canada to the Gulf. It was the most popular program on KOA with the single exception of Amos and Andy, according to the crude audience checks of the time. Because of this popularity, NBC put the Solitaire Cowboys on its coast-to-coast network as an unsponsored show,” (Myatt, p. 257).
Advertiser Craig Davidson said that the idea of merging promotion with entertainment was a new idea at the time. “It was in the early days of radio advertising. You may recall the battle we had with the radio officials to get permission to mention the name of the show. For a time they were so adamant about permitting the mention of the advertiser that we had to resort to the subterfuge of working in Solitaire Kitchens as the sponsor. Eventually, of course, this silly station policy broke down,” (Myatt, p. 257).
Not the first wholesale grocery in Colorado, the C.S. Morey Mercantile Company eventually became the largest. The company’s base of operations was the Morey Mercantile building at 16th Street and Wynkoop in Denver. Back in the 1920s, the train would stop right in front of the store to offload goods. Today, the Tattered Cover Bookstore resides in the former home of Solitaire. The signature Solitaire brand can still be seen at the top of the building.
In 1930, Roscoe added a new program sponsored by the Kuner-Empson canning company. With the mission to make history more interesting than traditional textbooks, the well-written half-hour dramatic radio sketches were valued enough by teachers to play in school classrooms. The program had the official title Reminiscences of the Old West, but listeners referred to it by the name of the beloved title character, Old Wagon Tongue, the grandfather who told stories of the old west to a small boy with a lot of questions. It was performed live before studio audiences of up to 75 people and tickets for the privilege were in great demand. Roscoe wrote, directed, and played the title character Old Wagon Tongue.
According to Variety magazine on January 1, 1935, “Most of the episodes are dramatic and are well built….The stagecoach sound effect machine is made with wheels on each side of a small box, turned in another box, with some sand and small rocks in it. When this is turned it is no trouble for the listeners to picture the scene.”
On June 9, 1931, Variety magazine stated, “A lot of experimenting was done to get a proper locomotive imitation. It is done by running compressed air through a rotary lawn sprinkler, and the sound of the wheels on the rail joints is made with a small wheel on a large one, with a break in the big one. The station tried for several days to imitate the sound of bees. Rubber bands and other things were tried, but the results were failures. Stockton asked a bee man how to do it and was advised to take a box of bees, with screen wire over them, up to the mike.”
Clarence A. Perregrine was the control room operator who made sure the sounds from the five or six mikes were mixed properly. Each show had a cast of players, musical background (orchestra and/or vocalists), on-going story or episodes and was year-round western culture for the mountain states. The stories were historically correct although some had fictional characters. One of the broadcasts in 1931 was a recreation of the Custer massacre from the Native American perspective. Another was about a couple of outlaws running wild in the West during the Civil War.
The book Radio Rides the Range states that “Roscoe K Stockton headed up a production team that claimed it devoted up to 50 hours researching the factual accuracy of each episode before rehearsals were scheduled,” (French and Siegel, p. 131). My great grandmother Pansy was part of the research team.
Variety’s January 1, 1935 edition went into detail about the Reminiscences of the Old West show chosen for the celebration of KOA’s new building:
“The Ghost of Dead Man’s Canyon” was picked for the opening of the new KOA studios in 1934. The show “concerned the ghost of a man, horse and dog claimed to have been seen by many in what is now known as Phantom Canyon, Roscoe Stockton takes the part of the narrator, and listeners were always anxious for him to start the tale with ‘Wait ‘til I light my pipe, Buddy’ – Buddy being played by Master Harker Collins, a red-headed chap of about 10 years, who, with the curiosity that only lads of that age can have, urges ‘Gramps’ to tell him the story. Stockton has carried the part of ‘Gramps’ through the entire series, and is now with KOA as assistant production manager,” (Variety, pg. 90).
With festivities starting at 8:30 p.m. on July 7, 1934 and continuing until 6:00 a.m., KOA held an all-night Dedicatory Party and Nationwide Broadcast in honor of their new 50,000 watt transmitter. First, there was a broadcast from Radio City, New York featuring Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra. Then, some entertainment from Denver with speeches by Governor Ed. C. Johnson. A segment from San Francisco was followed by more entertainment from Denver including Roscoe as Old Wagon Tongue. The Solitaire Cowboys brought the wide open spaces to listeners and those in the live studio. The Denver Philharmonic Acappella Chorus sang one of Roscoe’s songs: From the Rockies I’m Calling Yoo-Hoo!
The news in November 1935 that the ever-energetic “Spirit of the West” composer Estelle Philleo was sick with cancer hit the Denver creative community hard. The KOA staff poured their energy into “a KOA Talent Parade to honor and benefit Colorado’s Own Composer Miss Estelle Philleo, who has written many songs glorifying our West and who has made the West available to the world in a musical setting.”
The show opened with Roscoe’s popular Colorado song, C-O!-Hello!-Hooray!-D-O!, and continued with 16 songs written by Estelle Philleo along with a variety of performances in her honor. Clarence C. Moore, baritone singer and announcer at KOA who later became Program Manager, was Master of Ceremonies. Men O’ The West Quartette, The Sweethearts of Melody, The Merchants Orchestra, The Rhythmettes Trio, The Colorado Cowboys Quartette (formerly the Solitaire Cowboys), xylophonist Ralph Hansell, and various soloists and impersonators performed in Estelle’s honor. The Colorado State Governor and Mayor of the City of Denver were at the top of the list of patrons, immediately followed by composer Charles Wakefield Cadman.
1935 was a tough year for KOA. Not only did news of Estelle Philleo’s cancer plummet everyone’s spirits, but their faithful leader, one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, Freeman H. Talbot, lost his mind.
After a decade of faithful service to the Denver arts and entertainment community, Freeman H. Talbot suddenly quit as General Manager of KOA, appeared to be under a severe nervous strain, and began planning to commit suicide. For the sake of his family, he changed his mind. Then, three unidentified men forced him to write an extortion note to a very good friend under the threat of death for his two very small daughters, aged 2 and 7 months. The police could find no evidence that the three men existed. Talbot was arrested and the friend he was alleged to have wronged offered to post bond, but the police wouldn’t let him, so another friend stepped forward instead. It’s a testimony to how well loved he was. Freeman H. Talbot didn’t work with KOA again, but he did get his senses back and became a frequent speaker throughout Colorado. Some, notably the KOA Station Quartet who sang Crossing the Bar at the service, remembered that Talbot had lost his first daughter that same month five years earlier after a car struck the one his wife was driving in Denver. She survived, but their only child at the time did not. Bravely, Talbot kept going, not letting the tragedy affect his quality work for KOA and Denver Music Week. It appeared the suppression of grief had its cost. Or, it could be Talbot hadn’t lost his mind and the police had to cover up what may have been a mafia connected situation. Like many things in the past, we’ll never know for sure, but the result was the loss of Freeman H. Talbot at the helm of KOA.
It was just a week after the benefit for Estelle Philleo that Roscoe gathered 18 actors, 13 musicians, 6 writers, and 5 sound technicians to put together a production team that Variety magazine noted was “easily the largest ever used in a local commercial” broadcast for a new KOA radio program called Light on the West. The Colorado history series went out over the airwaves from 1935 to 1939. A 12-piece orchestra, conducted by C. Scheuerman, provided music on site for the program. (Variety, p. 33).
“Typical plot lines included murder, robbery, horse theft, cattle rustling, and claim jumping, but romance was not avoided. Nearly all of the shows featured fictional characters although real-life con-man Jefferson ‘Soapy’ Smith was portrayed on one program. Women played major roles in many episodes, including the portrayal of law enforcement officers. Sproul and Stockton captioned each episode with an interesting title, i.e. “Buckskin Breeze,” “Ghost Corral,” “Shorty Hagen’s Kid,” and “Lady Law,” (French and Siegel. p. 113).
As noted in the February 1939 edition of the NBC Transmitter, Roscoe’s Silver Heels episode of Light on the West “was presented visually for the attendees at the recent Western Mining Congress in Denver. Louise Morgan took the title role and the cast was directed by KOA’s production manager, Roscoe Stockton. Old-time costumes and the sparkling chorus added the finishing touch,” (p. 11).
Roscoe liked a big production. When he broadcast the historic Leadville fire, he used the actual fire wagon bell and chief’s trumpet in his recreation. Sound was the medium of radio, but Roscoe would take every opportunity he could to have a live audience to give the players the opportunity to perform for people.
When she was 13, Esther Givens started babysitting Roscoe and Pansy’s two sons, Oak and Paul, from 3:30 to 11:00 pm or midnight every night while Roscoe and Pansy attended KOA rehearsals or performances. Two years prior, from his deathbed, her father asked Roscoe to see to it that his daughter came to no harm and grew up to be a lady. Roscoe kept his word, providing wise counsel and treating Esther as a daughter.
In a letter to Oak’s daughter Lorrie, Esther wrote:
“Commercial radio was coming into being in the late 20s and Roscoe’s talents were perfect for the new entertainment field. He wrote, produced, directed and played a part in two weekly radio shows over KOA (NBC) Denver. One was the “Solitaire Cowboys” sponsored by Morey Mercantile Co. and the other “Light On the West” sponsored by the Public Service Co. of Colorado. Each show had a cast of players, musical background (orchestra and/or vocalists), on-going story or episodes and was year-round western culture for the mountain states. In the “Solitaire Cowboys” show Roscoe was the ranch foreman, “Solly.” In “Light on the West,” he was “Old Wagon Tongue,” the grandfather of a small boy to whom he related stories of the old west which were acted out. The stories were historically correct although some had fictional characters. Pansy played frequent roles ranging from crying infant to old squaw. Roscoe and Pansy made many lasting friendships with show people whose schedules brought them to Denver. Many famous performers were guests in their home in those days. Your Stockton grandparents were both prominent, highly regarded artists in their fields.”
It’s easy to imagine them in their little house on Vine Street with a cast of wild west characters huddled around a piano, singing, laughing and carrying on to all hours of the night.
Grace Lippard wrote a letter to Pansy remembering a visit to their home at that time:
“The evening you invited me to your Denver home and the Solitaire Cowboys were there with your husband and sang for us – the privilege of visiting your basement studio where you showed us your various dried materials – explaining how you wove Nature’s own coloring into paintings – was an evening I have always remembered with sincere pleasure.”
In 1933, Roscoe pioneered Radio Continuity Writing and Production classes at the University of Denver. His 14 year old son, Oak, who was a gifted electronic engineer, built a sound studio for his father’s classes that exceeded state of the art at the time.
Roscoe continued to balance work as a Dramatic Director and Production Manager at KOA with teaching responsibilities at the university until 1940 when Roscoe devoted his full time to teaching responsibilities at the university after about 15 years of Radio Days at KOA Denver.
SOURCES:
“36 Actors, Musicians, Sound Men, in Denver’s Biggest Local Commersh.” Variety. December 4, 1935, p. 33.
“Baby Of KOA Radio Man Killed By Car.” El Paso Times. El Paso, Texas. August 25, 1930.
“Extortion Plot Involves Denverite: Freeman H. Talbot, KOA Ex-Manager, Charged in Plot Against Friend.” The Fort Collins Express Courier. Fort Collins, Colorado. August 28, 1934.
French, Jack and Siegel, David S., editors. Radio Rides the Range: A Reference Guide to Western Drama on the Air, 1929-1967. North Carolina: McFarland & Co, Inc. Publishers. 2014.
Greeley Daily Tribune. Greeley, Colorado. February 5, 1932.
“His Intended Victim Offered To Post Bond.” The Daily Sentinel. Grand Junction, Colorado. August 29, 1934.
“J.B. Lyman to Denver.” Variety. January 24, 1940, p. 24.
“KOA Dramatic Director Writes Productions.” Battle Creek Enquirer. Battle Creek, Michigan. October 23, 1927.
“KOA To Try World Girdle: Ambitious Effort of Denver Station Tonight.” The Meriden Daily Journal. Meriden, Connecticut. May 26, 1926.
“KOA Will Broadcast Denver Music Week.” Star-Phoenix. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. May 2, 1925.
“Kuner-Empson.” Variety. March 4, 1931, p. 66.
Myatt, William L. “The Morey Mercantile Company: The Home of Solitaire.” The Colorado Magazine. Published Quarterly by The State Historical Society of Colorado: Denver, Colorado. October 1961, pp. 241-266.
“Old Wagon Tongue.” Variety. June 9, 1931, p. 56.
“Old Wagon Tongue.” Variety. November 3, 1931, p. 58.
“Portrayal Fools All.” Radio Digest.. February 1930, p. 69.
Radio Digest. December 1931, p. 87.
Radio Doings. October 27, 1928, p. 42.
“Reminiscences of the Old West.” Variety. January 1, 1935, p. 90.
Salinas Morning Post. Salinas, California. April 24, 1931.
“‘Silver Heels’ On the Stage.” NBC Transmitter. February 1939, p. 11.
“Tourists Turn To Radio For Facts.” The Birmingham News. Birmingham, Alabama. July 19, 1925.
“Two from Here Attend Denver Funeral Today.” The Fort Collins Express Courier. Fort Collins, Colorado. August 26, 1930.