Someday someone might write a book about Clyde Clarence "Doc" Brant.

Brant deserves to have his colorful life documented. For nearly 32 years, Brant made Terre Haute his residence. He died here Jan. 8, 1958, and is interred at Roselawn Memorial Park.

How he got to Terre Haute is a significant part of his story.

Civic pride was near its zenith in the mid-1920s, but the local economy was in precarious health.

Prohibition had shut down most of the distilleries and breweries and curtailed the demand on glass manufacturers.

The large Pennsylvania Railroad repair shop closed putting more than 1,000 out of jobs. Moreover, coal mining was on the decline.

In 1926, local businessmen headed by Ben Blumberg formed the Terre Haute Foundation to entice new industry to locate in the city.

The foundation sold more than $400,000 worth of stock with the proceeds earmarked to buy capital and equipment.

Brant was the first entrepreneur lured to the community by the Terre Haute Foundation. Born in Kansas in 1899, Clyde was raised in Conde, S.D., where he learned to fly a monoplane at age 15. Brant always was a step or two ahead of his time, a trait that often worked to his detriment.

During World War I, he served with the Signal Corps in France. Details of his experiences there are lacking, though it is known that he was overcome twice by gas.

After the war, Brant located in Los Angeles. There he invented a "B" battery for use in radio receivers. According to block ads appearing in Radio News national magazine, the Brant Battery Co. manufacturing plant was located at 1622 W. Venice Blvd.

Until the vacuum tube came along, all early radios used at least two different batteries, "A" and "B."

Rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery packs did not exist, but radio owners in rural areas, where no electrical current was available, used rechargeable lead acid batteries of the type still used to power automobiles.

When the battery ran down, the radio owner could hook up the battery to a car or truck generator and recharge it.

Batteries had notable limitations. If the A and B battery connectors were accidentally reversed, the radio tubes would be "fried."

Radio manufacturers sought to develop a battery-less radio.

Alternating current became available in many homes during the mid-1920s, and rectifier tubes, which could convert AC to DC, were made. Battery-less radio sets became popular with everyone but the battery manufacturers.

Most closed their doors. sUndaunted, Brant invented a "power unit" to allow a radio to be connected directly to a home electrical circuit. That is elementary today but, in 1925, it was state of the art.

Duly impressed, the Terre Haute Foundation convinced Clyde to locate Brant Radio Power Co. in Terre Haute. Its factory was established at 2055 N. 13th St.

Initial investors included Blumberg, Fred G. Heinl, William W. Bell, Rex Bell, J.B. "Ben" Pfister, George A. Schaal, Robert F. Nitsche, Joseph P. McKibben, Louis Silberman, Crawford McKeen, Buena Vista Marshall, Andrew E. Allison, Robert E. Walker, Robert I. Pierce, James S. Royse, Paul N. Bogart, Hart F. Farwell, Albert W. King, Albert L. New, Murat W. Hopkins and George A Schnull. All but New, Hopkins and Schnull were prominent Terre Haute businessmen.

The first commercial unit produced in Terre Haute was demonstrated at the Indiana Theater during January 1927 by Whitney-Allison Radio Co.

The power unit was not Brant's sole invention. Before moving to Terre Haute, Brant built a portable radio transmitter licensed by the Federal Radio Commission in 1926 as KGFO. Upon moving to Indiana, he named the mobile station "The Hoosier Power Unit."

On June 7, 1927, KGFO made national headlines when it was transported to Hawaii on the maiden voyage of the steamship City of Honolulu. The Los Angeles Times, which owned its own station, called KGFO "America's best portable station now in use."

Though Brant Power Radio Co. did not survive very long, Brant fell in love with Terre Haute and stayed. During the 1930s, he shifted his interest to cinema, displaying 16 millimeter films in Wabash Valley communities without theaters: Rosedale, Carbon, Farmersburg, Shelburn, Carlisle and Oaktown.

In 1939, he established Terre Haute's first drive-in theater at the northeast corner of Brown and Poplar streets. Though car speakers had not yet been invented, the concept lasted two summers.

Brant was a few years ahead of his time. Drive-in theaters became quite popular after World War II. He had some good luck that year, winning a home at 2116 Poplar St. in a Zorah Shrine raffle. From 1946 through 1949, Brant owned the Little Virginia Theater at 15th and Locust streets. The former neighborhood motion picture house was razed earlier this year.

Meanwhile, he stayed active in radio as service manager for Don Domers Radio. And he sponsored midget auto racing at a track at 25th Street and Wabash Avenue.

When televisions were first marketed in Terre Haute in 1948, Brant left Domers to open Brant Radio & Television Sales & Service at 1202 Wabash. He was the city's pioneer television dealer, followed closely by Jensen Brothers and Clarence Rush.

Besides radios and televisions, Brant offered Bell & Howell recording and motion picture equipment and a film library.

There is much more to the Clyde Brant story. Lamentably, Larry Brant -- perhaps the best chronicler of his father's experiences -- died in Cincinnati last year. Hopefully, another chapter can be written soon.

Mike McCormick is the Vigo County Historian. His column appears each Sunday.