The William Penn Hotel's Radio Days

The social center of downtown Pittsburgh during the early part of the 20th century, the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh was also a showplace for new technology. The world's first commercially licensed radio station, KDKA, began broadcasting from the hotel on November 2, 1920, with news of Harding's defeat of Cox in the presidential election. In those early pioneer years of radio, many radio stations shared the same frequency and voluntarily went off-air on certain nights -- it was Tuesday night in Pittsburgh -- so broadcasts from other cities could be heard.