A KLVL Gallery

Morales Radio Hall - toward the rear of the parking lot for the funeral home at 2901 Canal on the east side.  Built in 1970 to house the radio station, this structure replaced an earlier building right on the street in front of it that housed the radio station before.  The older building has been demolished to make room for more parking for the funeral home.  This building has been remodeled to be used as a community meeting hall.  The studios themselves were not restored.

The walls of the meeting room are lined with photos depicting some of the history of the station over the years, a small sample, I am told, of the hundreds of pictures that have been preserved.  The pennants in the background identify this photo as the 6th anniversary of the station which would have been in 1956 (May 5th, Cinco de Mayo),  They also wish Happy Birthday to Felix Morales, owner.  Mr. Morales wife, Angie, celebrated her birthday on May 5th, Morales himself was born on May 27.

The announcer Carlos Conde is on the left, with the cane (and apparently extending a hand held mic in from of the person in the center).  The person adjusting the microphone stand is Joe (Jose) Morales, I believe, son of Felix and longtime announcer and manager of KLVL. Felix Morales is on the right with his arms folded.  

Any help in identifying other participants will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 2.

Felix Hessbrook Morales - 1907-1988

Morales and his wife, Angeline "Angie" Vera Morales

Joe Morales, son of the owner.

Felix Morales played guitar and used his talent to entertain listeners to his radio programs in San Antonio and Houston before he got his own station, filling time when a scheduled guest failed to show or was late or ran short.  He also loved to join musical guests on air and afterwards, in sessions conducted both at the station and at his home as I understand.  Recordings were made of many of these sessions and thousands are said to have survived.  A large collection has been given to the (Harris County) Heritage Society, along with many photographs, and others are still held by the family, which has done a good job over the years of documenting and preserving the history of their enterprises.  This is one of the photos on the wall of the Radio Hall showing Morales, his wife I believe, and possibly a visiting film or musical star on the right.  The microphone boom and clock on the wall suggest this was in a studio at the station although the decor (lamp, seating, curtains) may indicate a private residence.  The sleeved discs on the table might be samples of the recordings released by the guest or recordings made during his visit.  Any help in identifying the man and the occasion will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 6.

A group picture with the same gentleman pictured above.  The others may be part of the celebrity's entourage or KLVL staff.  Whether the picture was taken in a studio or at the Morales home I don't know.  Any help in identifying those pictured or the occasion will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 7.

Any help in identifying those pictured with Felix Morales will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 8.

The two seated gentlemen have familiar faces but I cannot come up with names.  The one on the right may be Felix Tijerina, the well-known Houston restauranteur, but I have not been able to locate a good  likeness for comparison.  Any help will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 9.

The Morales Funeral Home was established almost 20 years before the radio station was launched.  This 1938 LaSalle Carved Panel hearse was used by the funeral home for years and is currently garaged elsewhere.  It was brought to the parking lot for the Heritage Society tour to see.  It still runs and appears to be in very good shape.  The tires look practically new and from what I could make out through the very dirty windows, the upholstery is in good shape.  In addition to the Radio Hall, the Funeral Home has been completely restored in recent years and plans were spoken of to fully restore this vehicle to be shown off at community events and used in parades.

The above photos were snapped by me during a Heritage Society See Interesting Places tour in March of 2017 when we also listened to a presentation by Christina Morales, granddaughter of Felix and current head of the Morales operations, on her family's history and achievements.  She currently serves as Representative to the Texas House of Representatives from District 145.  I neglected to take a recorder or note pad but have consulted other sources in writing this post.  Any corrections to any of the above information will be appreciated.

This story from the Houston Chronicle in 2015 tells of the grand opening of Morales Hall. Pictured is Christina Morales in the Hall looking over a large scrapbook which includes may newspaper clippings and photographs of the history of the station.  Excerpts from the scrapbook may be found online by searching for images of the Morales Radio Hall or KLVL.

Maria del Carmen Garcia, nee Aleman, first female radio announcer on KLVL.  Obituary.  There are several other pictures of her in the studio in the Tribute Video, most of them in the first few minutes, and the stills are in the From the Family section (scroll down through all the Memories).

This post from the East Aldine Management District deals with Houston Press columnist and novelist Sig Byrd, Felix Morales, a $20 funeral, cold beer, warm tortillas and butter, and listening to Maria Del Carmen Aleman, 'glamorous girl disc jockey' who reportedly received a thousand pieces of fan mail a week, and how Byrd wound up being buried in Morales Cemetery.

I sure hope to uncover an air check of Maria someday.

Photos and comments are welcome from other readers of this blog.

KLVL Feature on Postcards from Texas

Postcards from Texas on Houston's 55 has done a feature on KLVL and the Morales family.

Watch the clip online here.

Great story; lots of good pictures of the radio station, info on the family plus some of the early performers and programs.

The 1950s - Part I - KLVL, KMCO, KLBS, KBRZ, KCOH, KYOK

EDITED (BELOW) 9/8/2023

The number of stations on the AM dial in the Houston/Galveston area continued to grow throughout the 1950s but at a much slower pace than in the 1940s. By the end of the decade, FM began to come into it’s own.

As mentioned previously, KLVL signed on May 5, 1950, at 1480 kc, licensed to Pasadena. (Posts including mentions).

On April 16, 1951, KMCO signed on in Conroe at 900 kc. In 1979, the call letters of the Conroe station were KIKR; presently, KREH, licensed to Pecan Grove and a Vietnamese language station known as Radio Saigon, operates on the 900 frequency.

After the death of W. Albert Lee in November, 1951, Trinity Broadcasting Corporation purchased KLEE from his estate for $300,000. Trinity was made up of B.R. and Gordon McLendon of Dallas and oilman Hugh Roy Cullen of Houston. They owned KLIF, Dallas, KELP, El Paso, and the Liberty Broadcasting System. The station’s new calls were to be KLBS and the change took place on April 25, 1952, probably at midnight since both stations operated 24 hours a day. Ray A. Lewis was general manager of Trinity; Tom Cavanaugh was to be the General Manager of KLBS.

Gordon McLendon also said plans were being made to move the Liberty network’s headquarters to Houston from Dallas by sometime early in 1953 with about 150 jobs accompanying the move. KLBS would be the key station of the Liberty Broadcasting System and there would be a 100% change in the programming of the station. “Our goal is to salute Houston daily with top local and national entertainment, public interest and sports features,’ McLendon told the Houston Chronicle. The proposed move never took place as the network fell apart. McLendon was to sell KLBS in less than 2 years, only to repurchase it in 1957 and flip the call letters to KILT.

The Liberty network’s re-creations of baseball games had been a huge success and are what the network is mostly remembered for but there was a full range of programming offered including soap operas and newscasts originating from Washington, D.C., with such noted journalists of the day as William L. Shirer, Raymond Gram Swing, Joseph C. Harsh and John C. Vandercook. By the end of 1950, Liberty was supplying programming 16 hours a day and by August, 1951, had 431 affiliates, second only to the Mutual Broadcasting System. In Houston, LBS programs were heard on KATL. Less than a year later, 100 of the affiliates had pulled their affiliations, the broadcast day had been cut to 8 hours and the network was unraveling. Finanical problems were at the fore, with the loss of a $1,000,000 advertising contract with Falstaff beer the biggest single blow. This is what had led Hugh Roy Cullen to buy a stake in the network. Cullen, probably the richest Texan of the period, was impressed with McLendon and put $1,000,000 into the company without ever looking at the books. The network continued to lose money, however, and a second major blow was the refusal of Western Union to provide the wire service accounts that were necessary to the re-creation of ball games, a refusal that was upheld by a Federal judge in Chicago on April 14, 1952, one day before the start of the ‘52 baseball season.

For a first hand account of a McLendon sports recreation, see Don Keyes' account of working with McLendon, posted online a few years ago. Keyes was to be the National Program Director of the McLendon station group in later years, after the demise of LBS, and did mornings on KILT in Houston in the late 50s, being most famous for a flag-pole sitting stunt at Gulfgate Mall in 1957 (story here).

For a history of Gordon McLendon and his Liberty Broadcasting System and his ‘home’ station KLIF, see this excellent, comprehensive site maintained by Steve Eberhart. Also see the biography Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio by Ronald Garay.

KBRZ, Freeport, came on the air at 1460 kc at the end of August, 1952.  A detailed account of the sign-on and early years of the station has been posted here.


The first week of August, 1953, a group of investors headed by Robert C. Meeker acquired the license to KCOH and announced plans to change the programming over to serve Houston’s Black community. The office, technical and sales staff were to be retained but an all new air staff would be brought in. Vernon Chambers, who for three straight years had been voted one of the nation’s best Black disk jockeys, was named program director. Walter Rubens was the commercial manager. KCOH was the first Black-owned radio station in Texas according to the Handbook of Texas and only the second programmed for a Black audience in the state.

The official switch over of programming was supposed to be on August 21, 1953, but a look at the daily listings indicates the changes may have been made gradually or the station might have already been programming some toward the Black audience before the change of ownership. Programs included Harlem Breakfast and Harlem Nights, Tuxedo Junction and Cool and Easy. It is, of course, impossible to know what the musical content of those programs was just from the names. On the 21st, the newspaper schedule showed Chambers Corner, King Bee and Hattie Holmes, Sweet and Solid, Jammin’ Jamboree, Swing Low, the Rhythm Parade and the PM Ramble on the schedule.

A similar switch seemed to be taking place on KATL in the same time period. Program listings included Dixie Downbeat, RFD 1590, and the Chuck Wagon Call that had been the station’s morning show for years, but also Trummie Cain and Ramblin’ Round, both of which were later seen on KCOH schedules. In early 1954 King Robinson, General Manager and part-owner, announced that he and William H. ‘Little Eva’ Talbot, majority owner, had received an inquiry from a couple of Louisiana businessmen interested in buying the station. An announcement was expected soon and it came on the 15th of January. Jules Paglin and Stanley Ray, who owned stations in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, bought KATL for $200,000. Their group was known as the ‘OK’ chain and they were considering KYOK as new calls on 1590. No changes in programming were planned, it was stated.

KYOK was to become Houston’s second Black radio station; program changes apparently were brought into place gradually. Like most stations, KATL/KYOK was block programmed. Paglin and Ray eventually were to own a chain of black radio stations, including WBOK, New Orleans, WGOK, Mobile, WLOK, Memphis and WXOK, Baton Rouge. The new calls first appeared in the listings in the Chronicle on March 10 but not until March 18 in the Post.

In the summer of 1954 KYOK program listings still included Chuck Wagon Call, Let’s Polka, Gabe Tucker, Serenade in Blue, Kosher Kitchen and Hillbilly Hits, along with Sweet Chariot, Hotsy Totsy, Spiritual Sunbeams, and Little Betty. Hotsy-Totsy was to be a name of a KYOK jock for years. Tucker, a country dj, had worked on KATL, KLEE, and was to be on KRCT and KIKK for years.


Other stations, including KREL, also played rhythm and blues but KCOH took note of the new competition running ads touting itself as ‘Houston’s First and Only Negro Radio Station.’ The line-up on 1430 by this time included Chamber’s Corners, King Bee, Hattie Holmes, the Great Montague and Ramblin’ Around. A real estate program had been added on Sunday afternoons, patterned after a successful show on KXYZ, presented by a Black realtors association and aimed at Black homebuyers. It has also joined a new network, the 45 station strong National Negro Network, and started airing the first network program, a soap opera called Ruby Valentine, daily at 11am. There were plans for 3 more soaps and a dramatic series; network programs were distributed on tape.

EDIT TO ADD:  King Bee, on KCOH, real name was Clifton Smith.  He had an airshift on KNUZ in 1950 and is pictured in the montage at the top of the blog.  He (and Gladys 'GiGi' Hill were nominated for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame this year (2023) but did not receive enough votes to get in.

Carlos Conde - KLVL

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2009 WITH INCORRECT IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL PICTURED.  THIS HAS BEEN CORRECTED.  THIS POST HAS BEEN REWRITTEN WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND RE-TITLED AS OF 1/28/2021.  ALL THE COMMENTS SHARED BY READERS ON THE ORIGNAL POST HAVE BEEN PRESERVED AND PUBLISHED WITH THIS VERSION.

I am grateful to Andrew Brown for sharing this photo of long-time KLVL announcer Carlos Conde  from sometime in the 1950s.

Steven Conde, grandson of the announcer, has offered more biographical information about his grandfather who worked for Mr. Morales in radio in San Antonio and was recruited by Morales to come to Houston to work at KLVL.  He worked for Morales for more than 50 years and passed in 2018.  

Obituary with pictures and tributes.

I am looking forward to receiving even more biographical details.

The 1940s - Part 3 - The First Suburban Stations

After the close of World War II, broadcasters expected a lot of interest in FM radio, which had been used by the armed forces during the war and was unavailable for private use, and Congress had taken steps during the war to set up the FM band between 42 and 50 megacycles, then moved it to 88 to 108 megacycles. Instead there was a flood of applications for new AM stations, manufacturers put a lot of inexpensive new AM radios on the market and the development of FM was delayed for many more years. Part of the reason for the cheap AM sets was the shortage of wood brought on by the war; radio manufacturers stopped building big console sets and turned instead to table top models using plastic and metal cabinets due to the shortage of wood. (The chronology of FM in Houston, at least in the early years, is being discussed in a separate series of articles on the sidebar).

Around the Houston-Galveston area, several smaller communities got AM radio stations by the late 1940s. On the 9th of April, 1946, the Chronicle reported that three officials of the Goose Creek Daily Sun had chartered Tri-Cities Broadcasting Co. And applied for a permit for a 250 watt station; no hearing had been set. The principals were Robert Matherne, Publisher, Fred Hartman, Managing Editor, and Sidney S. Gould, Advertising and Business Manager. Fred Hartman later served as Texas Highway Commissioner and the big suspension bridge on Highway 146 is named for him. This application was apparently later withdrawn or amended.

On August 31, 1946, a story in the Houston Post was headlined ‘Tri Cities Radio to take to the air within 3 months.’ A construction permit had been granted by the FCC on Friday, August 30, to Bay Broadcasting Co. for station KRCT, to operate on 650 kc with 250w. C.Q. Alexander, the 6 foot 9 and a half inch mayor of Goose Creek was one of the principals. According to the Post a site had not even been selected yet but the Chronicle story said all the equipment had been acquired and the station expected to be on the air by Thanksgiving. The Chronicle reported the calls were to be either KBAY or KOCT, the latter apparently a typo.

(Photo from the files of the Baytown Library).

It is not clear when this station finally got on the air. On the 4th of December the FCC accepted for filing an application to approve the antenna at a location on Bayou Road, 1.7 miles from the center of Goose Creek, and to specify the studio location in the M. Wilkenfield Building at 106 Goose Str. in Goose Creek. White's Radio Log for Winter/Spring 1947, covering January, February and March, does not list the station but the Texas Almanac for 1947-48 includes KRCT as one of 94 radio stations operating as of April 15, 1947. The earliest mention I have found in the Goose Creek Daily Sun was on p. 2, June 24, 1947, of a radio address on the issue of school consolidation to be aired on the station. The Sun was trying to get it’s own competing radio station on the air and seemed to have ignored the existence of KRCT except in paid advertisements or news stories such as when the station’s 200' tower on Cedar Bayou was knocked down by a strong norther blowing in on November 7, 1947. That story received mention also in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and Mexia Daily News as severe weather had wreaked havoc across much of Texas and Louisiana.  (The station was back on the air the next day with a temporary antenna).

Other papers, however, provide earlier dates.  On February 27, the Liberty Vindicator, published in nearby Liberty, ran a story about a Baptist revival and stated one of the sermons would be broadcast over KRCT on March 9 at 2:30 pm. There were other mentions in the Vindicator and the Freeport Facts in April and May indicating the station was on the air.  The best guess is that KRCT got on the air sometime between late December, 1946, and mid-February, 1947.

Leroy Gloger became part owner of the station in late 1957. The station moved to Pasadena that year and in 1961 established studios in the Montagu hotel in downtown Houston and flipped the call letters to KIKK.

Roy Lemons, who was a Station Manager and Sales Manager for KIKK in the 60s, e-mailed me to report the original call letters KRCT came from the initials of Robert C. Touchstone, a furniture dealer in Goose Creek, who was one of the owners. He does not know when the station signed on or changed hands but says Gloger was the owner of a service station in Baytown when he bought the station for $110,000 with a $20,000 cash down payment. Roy has also provided information about the choice of the KIKK calls and the famous boots logo which will be included later in this chronology.

ETA:  Before the station got on the air an amended application was filed to move the studio location from the Wilkenfield building downtown to the transmitter site, described as the intersection Texas Avenue and Bayou Road or as 202 Bayou Road by the paper.  There is a 1957 Historic Aerial showing the facilities, just NE of the intersection of Wright Blvd. and Bayou Drive as it is now known.  The site does not allow links to specific images; go to the site and use the search parameters 'bayou drive baytown texas' and select the 1957 aerial.  Turn on the 'All Roads' overlay to identify Bayou Drive and Wright.  If you click on the 1964 aerial you will see that after the station relocated to Pasadena and went on KXYZ's main tower on Texas 225, the original KRCT facilities had been demolished and if you click on the 2004 aerial you can see what's there now - it is an upscale residential neighborhood.

More details on the history of KRCT and KIKK can be found here or by clicking on the labels below.

In its story on the KRCT action the Chronicle also reported Robert Matherne, owner of the Daily Sun at Goose Creek, had applied for a permit to operate a 1000 watt station on 1360 kc. Besides the principles of the Sun, the principles of Tri-Cities Broadcasting included I.G. Sanders, manager of the Culpepper’s Department Store in Goose Creek and Robert Strickland, an attorney. The call letters requested were KREL, because Robert E. Lee High School ‘had been and would continue to be an important part of life in the Tri-Cities.’ The go-ahead was given by the FCC on May 1, 1947.

The Handbook of Texas says that in 1942, Felix Hessbrook Morales first applied for a license for a radio station in Pasadena. Morales, a native of New Braunfels, had produced his own radio programs on a San Antonio station before moving to Houston and had bought time for Spanish language programming on KXYZ. Due to the war, Morales’ application was delayed for four years. The Houston Press reported on November 2, 1946, that Felix Morales of 2901 Canal had applied to the FCC for a 1000 watt daytime station on 850 kc, with the programming to be 80% Spanish and 20% English; there were said to be 40,000 Spanish speaking residents of Houston. Morales was finally to get a station on the air May 5, 1950 with a celebration of Cinco de Mayo. KLVL, “La Voz Latino,” 1480 kc, was licensed to Pasadena and is still on the air at that frequency with those calls, the third oldest radio station in Houston with the original calls. Read more about Morales and KLVL here.

According to the Broadcasting Yearbook, KGBC, Galveston, came on the air at 1540 kc in May, 1947, but the actual first air date was Saturday, February 1. A CP had been granted in August, 1946. James W. Bradner, Jr., was president of Galveston Broadcasting Co.; he had been an engineer with the TVA, with the national war housing administration during the war and City Manager of Waco. The station was only a daytimer at first and was promoted as Galveston’s only 1000 watt clear channel station. It is still on the air on the original frequency with the original calls.

According to Broadcasting Yearbook, KWHI Brenham, signed on April 15, 1947,  on 1280 kc. It was owned by the Brenham Banner Press but the archives of that paper are not available.  The earliest mention in print was an ad in the Bryan Eagle on May 9 and the first mention of the station in the Houston Post was on May 11. For more on the history of KWHI and it's sister FM, go here.

As far as I can tell it is the second oldest station in south east Texas outside of the Houston/Galveston or Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange markets (WTAW, Bryan-College Station is the oldest).


The image above is from the archives of the Galveston Daily News at the Rosenberg Library, Galveston.

KLVL Station Profile

Original air date: May 5, 1950, Cinco de Mayo and also the birthday of the owner's wife.

Original owner: Felix Hessbrook Morales, funeral home owner. The Morales Funeral Home is still in service at 2901 Canal.  The original studios, which sat right on Canal just to the east of the funeral home, have been demolished to provide more parking for the funeral home.  New studios for the radio station were built in 1970 situated behind the original structure.  This building still stands toward the rear of the funeral home parking lot and is called Radio Hall.  It has been restored, although not the studios themselves.  It is used for community events and its walls are lined with photographs of personalities who visited or worked at the station over the years.

Original Call Letter meaning: La Voz Latina

Current Owners: Radio Triunfo

Current website: The International Sound of Houston.

This archived site includes a page devoted to the history of KLVL.

KLVL was Houston's first Spanish language radio station and is the third oldest radio station in Houston still using it's original call.

All posts on this site labeled KLVL, in reverse order as published.

Additional mentions of KLVL may be found by using the search box at the top.