This week in history: Addison Mizner’s short-lived radio station launches

WFLA-AM, operated by Addison Mizner’s Boca Raton development company, went on the air on Feb. 5, 1927. “The Voice of Tropical America,” was touted as one of the largest radio stations in the country, “broadcasting all the warmth and beauty of sunny southland through to the ice-locked and snow-bound north.”

According to Donald Curl’s Mizner’s Florida: American Resort Architecture, the company ran out of money before it built a permanent studio, so WFLA’s broadcasts originated from a frame structure covered with palmetto fronds at the corner of Palmetto Park Road and NW Fourth Avenue. The station shut down within a year as Mizner’s empire collapsed.

WFLA radio towers in 1927. (Photo courtesy of the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum)

The concrete bases for the radio towers are still visible on the lawn in front of the Boca Raton Museum of Art School on Palmetto Park Road. (Photo courtesy of the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum)

Tags: Boca Raton, radio, This Week in History

This week in history: First area radio station signs on

At 1 p.m. on July 31, 1936, WJNO-AM 1230 went on the air. Originally a CBS affiliate, WJNO played everything from classical music to Steve Allen. The station would survive the Depression, World War II and the advent of television and computers. WJNO-TV, Channel 5 (NBC), signed on Aug. 22, 1954; it became WPTV in 1956 and was bought by Scripps-Howard in December 1961.

Tags: radio, This Week in History