A Curious Discovery: An Entrepreneur's Story

by John S. Hendricks

I didn’t know it at the time my uncle was setting up our antenna, but cable television had been born nine years earlier just north of Matewan, in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. Mahanoy City is also a place surrounded by mountains and hills that effectively blocked the new broadcast signals coming from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. John Walson owned an appliance store in Mahanoy City and was anxious to sell television sets to local residents. But no one could get a clear signal. So, in 1948, Walson erected a mountaintop antenna and strung “twin lead” or “ladder” cable to the valley community below, like my uncle Ralph would do for us almost a decade later. John Walson charged $100 per hookup and $2 per month for his community antenna television (CATV) service. That was a considerable sum in those days, but the locals, anxious to participate in this new media phenomenon sweeping the country, quickly signed up by the score.