page_title: WIBW (AM)
section_title: Early Years
hierarchical_section_title: WIBW (AM) / History / Early Years
caption_attribution_description: English: Promotional advertisement for radio station WIBW in Topeka, Kansas
context_page_description: WIBW is a commercial AM radio station in Topeka, Kansas. It is owned by Alpha Media and airs a talk and sports radio format. The studios and offices are on SW Executive Drive in Topeka. The transmitter is off NW Landon Road in Silver Lake.
  WIBW is simulcast on 250 watt FM translator station K285GL at 104.9 MHz.
context_section_description: On July 24, 1925, WIBW first signed on the air.  It was owned by Dr. Lawrence L. Dill of Logansport, Indiana.  Dill operated the station along with his business partner, Donald Harrell.
  In late 1926 the station was acquired by C. L. Carrell of Chicago, who converted it into a portable broadcasting station.  It joined a roster of seven stations controlled by Carrell. Portable stations could be transported from place-to-place on movable platforms such as trucks. These were generally hired out for a few weeks at a time to theaters, mostly located in small midwestern towns that didn't have their own radio stations, to be used for special programs broadcast to the local community. (Regulating "moving targets" proved difficult, so in May 1928 the Federal Radio Commission announced it was ending the licensing of portable facilities.)
  WIBW's time as a portable station was brief. In early February 1927 it began broadcasting from the Connor Hotel in Joplin, Missouri.  It was still under the management of Donald Harrell. However, on Mother's Day, May 8, it began transmitting under the sponsorship of the Topeka Daily Capital from the Jayhawk Theatre. The studios were located at Tenth and Kansas streets. The debut program, organized by Y.M.C.A. secretary Lyle O. Armel, was described as a benefit for "Flood Sufferers Through Red Cross".
  On January 31, 1929 ownership was transferred from C. L. Carrell to the Topeka Broadcasting Association, Inc.  It was organized by United States Senator Arthur Capper, who also owned the Capital. Capper died in 1951. In 1957, his family sold the Daily Capital and WIBW AM-TV to Stauffer Publications, owner of Topeka's other newspaper, the Topeka State Journal. WIBW's main studios for decades were located on Wanamaker Road in west Topeka, near the Menninger Clinic.  The programming there included live country music at 6:00 a.m. as late as the 1970s. The building housing those studios was severely damaged by fire January 5, 2012.
caption: Station advertisement (1949)[12]
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