October 23, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when the radio first crackled to life in the 1920s, it transformed how Americans shared news, music, and hope. But behind those first transmissions were young innovators like Lester Wolf, who saw endless promise in a brand-new medium. Working at one of Chicago’s early radio stations, Wolf helped shape the early days of commercial broadcasting, unaware that his ambition would come at a devastating cost. His great-grandnephew Robert Anderson revisits a forgotten family story that mirrors the birth of modern communication in the United States.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Leehabibe and this is our American stories. In
the early nineteen twenties, a brand new innovation swept across America.
It was audible, it was immediate, and as you'll soon hear, dangerous.
We're talking about broadcast radio. Here to share the story
of the early days of radio and the dramatic tale
(00:31):
of Lester Wolfe, a nineteen year old radio tech who
dropped out of high school to make a name for
himself at w okay in the suburbs of Chicago, is
Robert Anderson, his great grand nephew. Let's get into this story.
Take it away.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Robert in Homewood, Illinois, a south suburb of Chicago. At
the time it was a community of about two thousand people.
Homewould actually had one of those radio stations in the
early days of commercial broadcasting. The name of the station
the call letters WOK Radio thirteen eighty on your AM dial.
(01:11):
WOK had come into existence in nineteen twenty five, owned
and operated by Neutraround manufacturing company, which made radio receivers bulky, big, expensive,
difficult to operate. WOK, like most radio stations at that time,
even the stations in bigger cities like Chicago or New York,
(01:36):
it was difficult to fill the time during the day
with programming. There were no phonographs hooked up to mixers
that would take a signal to a transmitter and be
able to play a record on the air. It didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Then.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There were no talk shows, There were no broadcasts of
news every hour. What do you put on the air
for people to listen to? Well, a common program for
stations all over the country and for WOK and Homewood
was to broadcast from local dance halls and orchestra halls.
(02:12):
And these are the programs that people were fascinated by.
This is wireless telegraphy. This was a phenomenon. This is
like magic. You turn on a box that's cooked up
to a power source and you can hear something a
matter of a short walk from the WOK transmitter. A
(02:34):
family named the Wolf family lived on Dixie Highway, and
the youngest of two boys to the Wolf family was
Lester J. Wolf. In nineteen twenty six, Leicester turned nineteen
years old. He was fascinated by this new electronics based
(02:54):
industry of radio broadcasting. Lester was so enamored with local
radio station that he actually dropped out of high school.
His future was set. He was known as the nineteen
year old kid who gave up school to learn about
electronics and spent every hour that he could at the
local radio station WOKA helping them put their remote broadcast
(03:19):
on the air. Those who knew him knew that Lester J.
Woolf was the life of the party even when he
was a kid. He had a pet goose named Hiram
that all of the neighbors laughed about and enjoyed seeing
him play with. He was the one cracking jokes, the
(03:40):
one making fun of things, the one who had constant energy.
He was always the life of the party, the kid
who had something fun or funny to say, and he
had the good looks to go along with that effervescent personality.
Full had a dark hair, tall, good looking skin kid.
He was a musician. He played the ukulele. He was
(04:04):
comfortable in public settings. He could ham it up. He
enjoyed being the center of attention. He was always aiming
to please. The equipment was primitive and dangerous, at least
potentially dangerous. WKA was powered by five thousand small wet batteries.
(04:27):
Batteries like in your grandfather's old car. That could be
potentially dangerous in a car, certainly, five thousand wet batteries
and a primitive radio station could also be potentially very dangerous.
And the harnessing of the electricity generated by the batteries
was also primitive and something to be very careful around.
(04:49):
The circuit breakers really didn't function all that safely. There
weren't checks and balances built into the equipment because the
equipment was brand new technology. It wasn't very advanced at all.
Late that Saturday night on July tenth, nineteen twenty six,
it was a clean broadcast for WOK. They had the
(05:14):
line hooked up to Hyde Park in Chicago, maybe some
twenty twenty five miles away, and the dance band was
coming in loud and clear, and the people listening in
Homewood were enjoying the program, and they were enjoying it
so much at the dance hall that there was thunderous
(05:35):
applause that not only almost brought the house down, but
it brought a fuse down Back at WOK in Homewood.
The fuse blew and the station immediately went off the air,
and those late Saturday night technicians were probably half asleep,
(05:56):
and suddenly they're wide awake. We're off the air. That
little panic sets in and young Lester Wolf is among
the crew there that night. Johnny on the spot chance
to impress the bosses, So Lester takes it upon himself
to get the station back on the air, change that fuse,
and save the day. Little did he know what was
(06:20):
going to happen. He charges into the room where the
equipment that had been affected is located by those five
thousand wet batteries. He puts in the new fuse, but
having forgotten to take down the power of the station first,
(06:42):
he becomes a conduit. He completes the circuit with his body.
He has sixty five thousand volts of power go through
his body and he collapses is to the floor. He
(07:03):
falls to the floor, he bounces right back up. He says,
I'm okay, and he collapses again. This time he doesn't
get back up. Lester J. Wolf is on the floor
of the radio station, dead at the age of nineteen.
(07:26):
Two days after the tragedy, the WOKA studio located in
Hyde Park received a telegram from w RNY Radio in
New York from a Charles Isaacson. It was a short
telegram message that said, we want to do something in
(07:47):
the industry to memorialize Lester J. Wolf, the first martyr
to radio, which is what he was already being called
around this fledgling, close knit industry around the country. Would
family approve fundraising effort to build a monument for Lester.
They liked the idea of some sort of a monument
(08:09):
because the word had gotten around the country that something
terrible happened at a radio station in Chicago and a
nineteen year old has died as a result of a
terrible accident. The goal was ten thousand dollars in nineteen
twenty six. That was a big goal. The Neutrolround company
that owned wk Radio in Homewood, where Lester worked and died,
(08:33):
came up with the initial one thousand dollars to get
the effort started. Other money came in from radio operators
around the country. But after that nothing, no money, no
word about the money. The money never surfaced, someone absconded
with it. It was gone. So the memorial for Lester J.
(08:55):
Wolf never got built, but there is a memorial of
sorts at Homewood Memorial Gardens Cemetery a short distance from
where Lester both lived and where he died at Woka.
There is on his tombstone a reference to him being
(09:15):
the first to die in service at a radio station.
His tombstone references Lester J. Wolf born nineteen oh seven
died nineteen twenty six while in service to Wokay Radio.
Lester J. Wolfe is the first martyr to radio.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by John Elfner. He's a history teacher in Illinois. The
story of Lester J. Wolfe here on our American Stories
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Leehabibe and this is our American stories. In
the early nineteen twenties, a brand new innovation swept across America.
It was audible, it was immediate, and as you'll soon hear, dangerous.
We're talking about broadcast radio. Here to share the story
of the early days of radio and the dramatic tale
(00:31):
of Lester Wolfe, a nineteen year old radio tech who
dropped out of high school to make a name for
himself at w okay in the suburbs of Chicago, is
Robert Anderson, his great grand nephew. Let's get into this story.
Take it away.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Robert in Homewood, Illinois, a south suburb of Chicago. At
the time it was a community of about two thousand people.
Homewould actually had one of those radio stations in the
early days of commercial broadcasting. The name of the station
the call letters WOK Radio thirteen eighty on your AM dial.
(01:11):
WOK had come into existence in nineteen twenty five, owned
and operated by Neutraround manufacturing company, which made radio receivers bulky, big, expensive,
difficult to operate. WOK, like most radio stations at that time,
even the stations in bigger cities like Chicago or New York,
(01:36):
it was difficult to fill the time during the day
with programming. There were no phonographs hooked up to mixers
that would take a signal to a transmitter and be
able to play a record on the air. It didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Then.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There were no talk shows, There were no broadcasts of
news every hour. What do you put on the air
for people to listen to? Well, a common program for
stations all over the country and for WOK and Homewood
was to broadcast from local dance halls and orchestra halls.
(02:12):
And these are the programs that people were fascinated by.
This is wireless telegraphy. This was a phenomenon. This is
like magic. You turn on a box that's cooked up
to a power source and you can hear something a
matter of a short walk from the WOK transmitter. A
(02:34):
family named the Wolf family lived on Dixie Highway, and
the youngest of two boys to the Wolf family was
Lester J. Wolf. In nineteen twenty six, Leicester turned nineteen
years old. He was fascinated by this new electronics based
(02:54):
industry of radio broadcasting. Lester was so enamored with local
radio station that he actually dropped out of high school.
His future was set. He was known as the nineteen
year old kid who gave up school to learn about
electronics and spent every hour that he could at the
local radio station WOKA helping them put their remote broadcast
(03:19):
on the air. Those who knew him knew that Lester J.
Woolf was the life of the party even when he
was a kid. He had a pet goose named Hiram
that all of the neighbors laughed about and enjoyed seeing
him play with. He was the one cracking jokes, the
(03:40):
one making fun of things, the one who had constant energy.
He was always the life of the party, the kid
who had something fun or funny to say, and he
had the good looks to go along with that effervescent personality.
Full had a dark hair, tall, good looking skin kid.
He was a musician. He played the ukulele. He was
(04:04):
comfortable in public settings. He could ham it up. He
enjoyed being the center of attention. He was always aiming
to please. The equipment was primitive and dangerous, at least
potentially dangerous. WKA was powered by five thousand small wet batteries.
(04:27):
Batteries like in your grandfather's old car. That could be
potentially dangerous in a car, certainly, five thousand wet batteries
and a primitive radio station could also be potentially very dangerous.
And the harnessing of the electricity generated by the batteries
was also primitive and something to be very careful around.
(04:49):
The circuit breakers really didn't function all that safely. There
weren't checks and balances built into the equipment because the
equipment was brand new technology. It wasn't very advanced at all.
Late that Saturday night on July tenth, nineteen twenty six,
it was a clean broadcast for WOK. They had the
(05:14):
line hooked up to Hyde Park in Chicago, maybe some
twenty twenty five miles away, and the dance band was
coming in loud and clear, and the people listening in
Homewood were enjoying the program, and they were enjoying it
so much at the dance hall that there was thunderous
(05:35):
applause that not only almost brought the house down, but
it brought a fuse down Back at WOK in Homewood.
The fuse blew and the station immediately went off the air,
and those late Saturday night technicians were probably half asleep,
(05:56):
and suddenly they're wide awake. We're off the air. That
little panic sets in and young Lester Wolf is among
the crew there that night. Johnny on the spot chance
to impress the bosses, So Lester takes it upon himself
to get the station back on the air, change that fuse,
and save the day. Little did he know what was
(06:20):
going to happen. He charges into the room where the
equipment that had been affected is located by those five
thousand wet batteries. He puts in the new fuse, but
having forgotten to take down the power of the station first,
(06:42):
he becomes a conduit. He completes the circuit with his body.
He has sixty five thousand volts of power go through
his body and he collapses is to the floor. He
(07:03):
falls to the floor, he bounces right back up. He says,
I'm okay, and he collapses again. This time he doesn't
get back up. Lester J. Wolf is on the floor
of the radio station, dead at the age of nineteen.
(07:26):
Two days after the tragedy, the WOKA studio located in
Hyde Park received a telegram from w RNY Radio in
New York from a Charles Isaacson. It was a short
telegram message that said, we want to do something in
(07:47):
the industry to memorialize Lester J. Wolf, the first martyr
to radio, which is what he was already being called
around this fledgling, close knit industry around the country. Would
family approve fundraising effort to build a monument for Lester.
They liked the idea of some sort of a monument
(08:09):
because the word had gotten around the country that something
terrible happened at a radio station in Chicago and a
nineteen year old has died as a result of a
terrible accident. The goal was ten thousand dollars in nineteen
twenty six. That was a big goal. The Neutrolround company
that owned wk Radio in Homewood, where Lester worked and died,
(08:33):
came up with the initial one thousand dollars to get
the effort started. Other money came in from radio operators
around the country. But after that nothing, no money, no
word about the money. The money never surfaced, someone absconded
with it. It was gone. So the memorial for Lester J.
(08:55):
Wolf never got built, but there is a memorial of
sorts at Homewood Memorial Gardens Cemetery a short distance from
where Lester both lived and where he died at Woka.
There is on his tombstone a reference to him being
(09:15):
the first to die in service at a radio station.
His tombstone references Lester J. Wolf born nineteen oh seven
died nineteen twenty six while in service to Wokay Radio.
Lester J. Wolfe is the first martyr to radio.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by John Elfner. He's a history teacher in Illinois. The
story of Lester J. Wolfe here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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