The third and final season of Empire Builders

Summer has transitioned to Fall, and much like the cast and crew of the Empire Builders radio production team, I’m coming off my summer hiatus and returning to an effort of weekly blogging on this topic. It was another busy and satisfying summer for me, which included an overdue study trip to the acme of all things Great Northern – St. Paul and the Minnesota Historical Society. MHS has the most extensive collection anywhere of business documentation of the Great Northern Railway. I spent the better part of a ten-day trip to the Twin Cities at MHS. I returned home with 4,500 digital copies (photos) of documents, the majority of which have some sort of connection to the Empire Builders story. Much of this material relates to aspects of the first two seasons of the radio program, and is therefore a bit late to the party with regard to the serial nature of my blog posts. On the other hand, I also located a good deal of new material pertaining to the third and final season, much of which will come in handy as I write about the series over the next several months.

NBC's original New York office building and broadcast studios at 711 5th Avenue. The first two seasons of Empire Builders were aired from this location.

As I’ve written about in earlier blog posts, the Empire Builders radio series was only on the air for three seasons: January to June, 1929; September, 1929, to June, 1930; and September, 1930, to June, 1931. This blog post kicks off the beginning of the end, with respect to memorializing all 103 of the Monday evening broadcasts on the occasion of each one’s 85^th anniversary: the third and final season of Empire Builders. I’ll try to share insights about existing recordings of episodes, significant changes to the cast and crew, the location of the broadcasts, broadcast content, and what is known about the eventual demise of the series. I will also report on an Empire Builders promotional tour of Glacier National Park that occurred in July, 1931 – after the series had come to an end.

Most people who have any interest in this topic are keen to know which broadcasts were recorded, and more to the point, which ones are still available to be enjoyed today. The opening and dedication of the Great Northern Railway’s Cascade Tunnel was recorded, and is available from one or two sources on the internet. This was the one-hour broadcast of January 12, 1929. That broadcast ushered in the 103 regular Monday evening programs which comprised the Empire Builders radio series. Of those 103 Monday shows, only 9 are available on the internet. But it turns out the railroad had several more broadcasts recorded – all of them in the final season of the program.

By accessing accounting records of the Great Northern Railway, which are part of a massive collection of GN records at the Minnesota Historical Society, I’ve assembled the following list of dates on which the programs were arranged to be recorded (see below).

 

DATE of broadcast	Title or [Topic]	Broadcast number
11/10/1930	Armistice Day Reunion	301110
11/24/1930	Bellingham or Broadway	301124
12/8/1930	The Marriage Tree	301208
12/15/1930	A Montana Christmas	301215
12/22/1930	Attar of Roses	301222
12/29/1930	New Year's Story	301229
1/5/1931	Prosperity Baby	310105
1/12/1931	A Long Distance Call	310112
1/19/1931	Nan o' the Northwest	310119
1/26/1931	La Mariposa	310126
2/2/1931	James J Hill - Background of Empire	310202
2/9/1931	Chief Black Hawk	310209
2/16/1931	Glacier Park Dance Hall	310216
2/23/1931	[James J. Hill]	310223
3/2/1931	Nine Spot	310302
3/9/1931	Indian Names	310309
3/16/1931	[Irish story]	310316
3/23/1931	Charles Russell	310323
3/30/1931	Mountain of Dreams (unconfirmed)	310330
4/6/1931	Shoes of Eloquence	310406
4/13/1931	Mushy of Hell's Gate Mine	310413
4/20/1931	Scenes of Montana Campfires	310420
4/27/1931	[Canadian Rebellion]	310427
5/4/1931	Legend of the Wild Rose	310504
5/11/1931	Missing	310511
5/18/1931	The Billion Dollar Baby	310518
5/25/1931	On Time Hank	310525
6/1/1931	The Belled Bridge	310601
6/8/1931	Room 20	310608
6/15/1931	The Silk Special	310615
6/22/1931	The Seal of the Great Spirit	310622

 

The dates listed in the table above represent the dates that the GN appears to have paid to have the live broadcast recorded. These were probably meant only as sound checks, a simple form of quality control. There was never any intention to rebroadcast these presentations, and the quality of the existing copies of these recordings makes it clear they would not have been suitable for such use.

Some of the broadcasts remain available to listen to, but to my knowledge they exist only on 3^rd or 4^th generation re-recordings. The McJunkin Advertising Agency in Chicago was paid to have the live broadcasts picked up over the air at the local NBC affiliate and record them on aluminum transcription discs. Most of those discs seem to have survived to a point in time when they were accessed by someone who then recorded them onto reel-to-reel tapes, and/or cassette tapes. Of those recordings, a number of them have been digitized, and a select few are accessible on the internet in MP3 or WAV format. Their quality is a mixed bag – some are quite good, others contain a lot of clicks, hissing, and volume drops. They are, however, among the earliest existing recordings of any American commercial radio serial, and as such, are true historical treasures.

The Merchandise Mart in Chicago, site of NBC's new broadcast studios beginning in 1930, and home to Empire Builders for its final season on the air.

The broadcast of September 29, 1930, was the first of the Empire Builders series to be broadcast out of the new NBC studios at Chicago’s massive Merchandise Mart, the largest building in the world when it opened for business that year. With the move from New York to Chicago, significant changes occurred in the cast and crew of Empire Builders. Two of the most crucial people in the life of the series remained: the GN’s Harold Sims, and the Old Timer (actor Harvey Hays). Some of the men with NBC and the McJunkin Advertising Agency were unchanged, including writers Edward Hale Bierstadt and W.O. Cooper. Many other names familiar to followers of Empire Builders parted ways with the show. These included: band leader Andy Sannella; actress Virginia Gardiner; sound effects engineer Harry Edison; announcer John S. Young, and harmony whistler Bob MacGimsey.

A number of radio performers new to Empire Builders shared top billing (or had recurring supporting roles) when the program resumed production in Chicago. The new band leader was Josef Koestner, a Bavarian by birth who made a name for himself conducting for operas, but in the U.S. found opportunities leading ensembles performing popular music for dances and theatrical productions (including motion pictures). The crew of sound effects technicians was led by Fred Ibbett, a Brit who had some radio experience with the BBC, but now found himself in the U.S. The new studio director was Don Bernard, and Ted Pearson took on the announcer role in place of John S. Young. Obed “Dad” Pickard appeared on the June 10, 1929, broadcast inaugurating the new Empire Builder train. During the third and final season of Empire Builders, Dad Pickard made several appearances on the broadcasts at the Chicago studio. Another musician who was featured heavily during the final season was Marc Williams, the “Cowboy Crooner.” Williams was also a featured host of the “Old Timer’s Tour” of Glacier National Park that was conducted in July, 1931, after the series had come to an end.

Publicity photo taken at the Chicago NBC studios. Seated: Director Don Bernard. Standing (L-R): Obed "Dad" Pickard, Harvey Hays (the "Old Timer"), Don Ameche, Bernardine Flynn, unknown man, unknown woman, Bob White, unknown man.

Several new radio actors also joined Empire Builders for the final season. I plan to provide additional insights into some of these folks in the coming weeks, but here is a brief list of them: Lucille Husting, Bernardine Flynn, Don Ameche, and the married couple of Bob and Betty White (no, not that Betty White…. more on her later).

Another feature unique to the third season of Empire Builders was the utilization of several radio stories submitted by winners of the GN’s continuity contests. I’ll do my best in future postings to document which stories those were and who wrote them.

Largely because the radio program was relocated to NBC’s new Chicago studios, the GN departed from their initial strategy and put a great deal of money and effort into promoting the series. This was a true “paradigm shift” for the railroad. Up to this point, the railroad incurred only minimal expense advertising the Empire Builders radio series. As I’ve stated in prior blog posts, the radio show was itself an advertising program of the railroad. They saw little point in advertising their advertising, to put it simply. But during this season of the program, the Great Northern Railway did record 31 of that season’s 39 broadcasts. I have digital copies of several. They also paid a company called “Theatrical Chicago” to produce a large number of publicity photos for them – many of which I have collected over the years. The result of all this is that I will have noticeably more material to work with for this final series of broadcasts, so my blog posts going down the home stretch promise to be a bit more engaging (I hope).