"WANTED -- Details of the demise of WEAC, Terre Haute's first radio station."

For many years, most local radio history buffs have operated under the assumption that WRPI was the Wabash Valley's first licensed radio station.

Rose Polytechnic Institute was issued a permit to operate WRPI by the Federal Radio Commission on April 27, 1927, and went on the air June 15, 1927. The license later was transferred to WBOW.

Nearly five years earlier - May 25, 1922 - the Department of Commerce issued a radio license to Baines Electric Service Co. of Terre Haute for WEAC. The station was on the air by May 30.

No "gapping" existed between licensed radio broadcast frequencies in those days. WEAC operated at 833 kilohertz. It was the sixth licensed radio station in Indiana.

Camille C. Baines, president of Baines Electric Service Co., which sold ABC washing machines and Royal Vacuum Cleaners at 24 S. Eighth St., a storefront in Odd Fellows Hall, secured the license, designed the studio and managed the station.

Baines hired Clarence M. West, a first-class commercial radio operator with the U.S. Navy for seven years, as the station's chief engineer.

On June 2, Baines entered into a joint-venture agreement with the Terre Haute Tribune. Effective June 8, 1922, WEAC was known as "The Baines-Tribune Radio Broadcasting Station of Terre Haute, Indiana."

June 8 was the formal grand opening and an array of local artists participated in the affair. According to the Tribune, many homes equipped with radio receivers planned dinner parties around the event. Several downtown merchants closed early to allow employees time to reach home and tune in.

Jensen brothers' Brunswick Shop furnished a Knabe grand piano with Ampico music rolls. Clifford E. Lowe's Syncopated Orchestra performed during "Terre Haute's premier radio concert" from 5 to 6 p.m. Baines' telephone "rang off the hook" with requests, particularly for Paul Dresser's "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away."

From 6 to 8 p.m., the station was silent but, at 8, the Super Six Orchestra from Marshall, Ill., entertained the audience followed by vocalists Eva E. Tooley accompanied by pianist Margaret Kintz Duncan, balladeer John R. Walsh accompanied by pianist Lucille Wilkinson, and piano soloist Marguerite E. Woelte.

At the conclusion of the musical programming, Rose Poly professor Frank M. Stone delivered an address on the future of radio.

"The age of wired wireless has been developed," Stone declared. "The radio vacuum tube is a triumph of research in science and is the heart of radio telephony as it stands today. The one obstacle which remains unconquered is the elimination of atmospheric electricity which listeners hear now as a crackling noise in the receivers."

Commencing June 9, daily news was presented from noon to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. each day. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, entertainment was offered from 8 to 10 p.m. Baseball scores were reported every day at 5:30 p.m.

The Tribune provided notice of the schedule, often in a front page news story. On Tuesday, June 13, Ted Armian's orchestra, a piano-violin duet by Orville and Gladys Noller and vocalists Doris Richardson and Walker Morgan were on the menu. The following Saturday, a "Children's Half Hour" included a reading of "Billy Whiskers." Thereafter, a children's program was presented 15 minutes each evening except Sunday.

During the next week, the WEAC audience heard Chris Stark's Orchestra, entertainment by Liberty Theater vaudeville artists, and Leo Baxter's Liberty Theater orchestra. Other musical selections were presented by the Stark-Doris Richardson duet, vocalist Walter Morgan accompanied by sister Helen Morgan, singer Joseph Houk accompanied by pianist Emma Smith, Scottish balladeers John Thomson and Charles Campbell, music teacher and pianist Ilene Binning and the Garfield High School Hi-Y Minstrels.

The signal was strong. Almost every day the Tribune published laudatory comments received from listeners as far away as New York City and Long Island.

Harry Frey, who became a musician and took his multiple talents to radio, television station WTHI and Mayor Pete Chalos' office, was a fascinated observer. As a youngster, Frey watched the artists perform through the WEAC studio window facing South Eighth Street.

"I remember watching Horace Capps sing and Bob Gilkey play the ukulele," Frey reminisced the other day. "There was little continuity. After one artist performed, another stepped up to the microphone. And I remember one fellow reading poetry."

By late June, loudspeakers were installed in Baines Electric Service Co.'s sales room to allow larger crowds to attend the evening broadcasts.

Other performers who went on to fame if not fortune included saxophonist Ted Anderson, clarinetist Ralph "Skinny" Budd, pianist (and later bandleader) Ada Campbell, Cahill's Kings of Syncopation with Herman Moench on drums, Paul Johnson's American Orchestra and the popular Harmony Four, which included Carl C. Jones and Eugene Morgan.

The station's popularity continued into mid-August when, abruptly, mention of the WEAC and the Baines-Tribune Broadcasting Co., disappeared from newspaper pages. Records reflect that WEAC's license was "deleted" on March 5, 1923.

No explanation has been unearthed. Since radio advertising had not yet been conceived, the venture could not have been a financial bonanza. One newspaper report referred to listeners' pleas to continue the radio station, suggesting that Baines' devotion to the WEAC prevented him from promoting his retail store.

Soon after the station closed, local radio pioneer Camille Baines moved to Louisville, Ky., where in died in February 1956.

WEAC is not mentioned in his local newspaper obituary.