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.

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.

Happy Birthday, KLVL

KLVL-AM, 1480, was launched on May 5, Cinco de Mayo, 1950, and turns 57 this year. It is Houston's 11th oldest surviving radio station and 3rd oldest to still have its original call letters.

The station was the result of years of effort by Felix Hessbrook Morales. Morales had had a Spanish language program on San Antonio radio before moving to Houston. He bought time on KXYZ in the 40s for a Spanish language program that started out just one night a week but became a nightly event. He first applied for a license in 1942 but the FCC's wartime refusal to consider any applications unless the applicant could prove it had the necessary equipment to actually build a station meant that application went nowhere. The application was re-filed in 1946 but it took 4 more years for the station to get on the air.

KLVL stood for La Voz Latina and the station was known for its community involvement. Like most stations in the early 50s, KLVL was actually block-programmed. Country DJ Smokey Stover, who is in the Country Radio Broadcasters Hall of Fame, worked there in the early 1950s before going to work for KRCT.

In the summer of 1953 the station became possibly the first in Houston to air a foreign language program other than Spanish when it launched an Italian Hour once a week. The first guest was popular north-side restauranteur Joe Matranga.

In the summer of 1962 Morales launched KLVL-FM, Houston's first Spanish language FM. That station was sold in 1969 and became KYND-FM and is now KKBQ-FM.

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.

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.

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 1940s - Part 4 - 1946

Note: The article previously published as The 1940s - Part 4 - KATL has been retitled Part 5 to keep the articles in chronological order.

The only new stations to come on the air in Houston in 1946 were to be FM outlets but there was a lot of activity behind the broadcasting scene as the country and the industry continued the transition back to peacetime activities.

It had been reported in December, 1945, that a group calling itself Veterans Broadcasting had been formed to put Houston’s 5th radio station on the air on the 1230 frequency that was to be vacated by Texas Star’s KTHT; the application was contingent on approval of KTHT’s move. This was a group of Hofheinz associates that had been privately informed of his intentions so they could move quickly on the opening. Apparently the name Veterans had been chosen because all the principals were veteran broadcasters; the call letters KNUZ were to be used but the station was not going to be a news outlet, the calls referred to the fact that a couple of the principals had been newsmen.

One month later, on January 18, 1946, the Press reported not only on Veterans’ application but also the application of Hofheinz to move KTHT to 790 and an application for a station to operate on 610 kilocycles with the call letters KHTN.

The March roundup of FCC actions and filings reported in the Press on the 16th included news that hotelman W. Albert Lee had filed a competing application for a station on 610 kc, veteran Houston broadcaster and advertising man Lee Segall had filed an application for 1230, H. C. Coeblain and San Jacinto Broadcasting had filed for a station on 1470, Fred Weber, E.A. Stephens and William H. Talbot had filed for a station on 1590 and Radio Broadcast Associates, a group mainly based in San Antonio consisting of Eugene J. Roth, Jack. L. Pink and James M. Brown, had filed for a permit for a 250 watt station on 1180. Roth had put a station on the air in San Antonio in 1927 in the back of his auto repair shop on Main and taken the call letters KGRC, meaning Kome to the Gene Roth Company. Two years later someone had pointed out to him that he needed a government license to do what he was doing so he wrote to the Commerce Department and reported himself. According to Richard Schroeder in Texas Signs On, Herbert Hoover wrote back informing him that he was now authorized to operate a station in San Antonio with the call letters KGRC. That station had become KONO.

The Press reported on April 26 that Lee Segall had been granted an FM license; no other details were given. It is believed this license was transferred to the company that bought out Segall when he decided to relocate to Dallas and would have been a proposed KCOH-FM but never made it on the air. However, this was apparently the first license issued for an FM station in Houston in the upper (88-108mc) band.

The paper also noted W. Albert Lee’s and Roy Hofheinz’s applications and identified the head of the company seeking station KHTN on 610 kc as Robert T. Bartley, a nephew of powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn. It was often speculated in coverage of this story that Bartley’s Washington connections made him a favorite to win the permit.

On May 4th, the Post reported its parent company, Houston Printing Co., had received a permit for an FM station to operate on 99.7 megacycles with 19.6 kilowatts. For more on this, see the FM Chronology. The paper also reported the FCC announced its intentions to hold competitive hearings on the applications of W. Albert Lee and KHTN, Inc. for a station on 610.

During May hearings resumed on Roy Hofheinz’s application to move KTHT to 790 kc and Lee Segall dropped a competing application for the frequency. It took almost 4 years for Hofheinz to win approval for his proposed move and brought him into conflict with one of the largest broadcasting outfits in the country; that story will be reported in a separate post.

On July 20 the Press reported the FCC had issued a permit the previous day for a new Houston AM station, the first since 1944. The operation was to be headed by Fred Weber of New Orleans, a former General Manager of the Mutual Broadcasting System who announced that no studio site had yet been selected. The station would take 10 months to get on the air and take the calls KATL. That is the subject of the next segment of this AM chronology.

Within 2 weeks Houston got a fifth radio station, Texas Star’s KTHT-FM. This is reported on in the FM Chronology. Later that month, the Chronicle reported that Metropolitan Houston Broadcasting Co. had filed for a permit for a full time station on 1060 kc to operate with 5 kW days and 1 kW nights. R.H. Rowley, Glen H. McLain, L.M Rice of Dallas and James A. Clements of Angleton were identified as the principals of the company. Clements was also a partner in Bay City Broadcasting which already held a permit for a station in Bay City, presumably KIOX.

In October a hearing on Radio Broadcast Associates of Houston’s application for a station was postponed. In its article the Press referred to Eugene L Levy, an error I believe, and gave the frequency sought as 1170 and the power as 1000 watts. The paper also noted that Roy Hofheinz and his partner, W.N. Hooper had amended their application for a station in New Orleans to request 50 kw rather than 5 and move the frequency from 1580 to 1540. This project of Hofheinz and Hooper was later scrapped due to cash flow problems.

Rounding out the action on the radio scene in Houston for 1946, the Press reported on November 2 an application had been filed for a Spanish language station in Houston to operate on 850 kc with 1000 watts daytime. Felix Morales had been trying since 1942 to get an AM station on the air in Houston; he would not succeed until May, 1950, with KLVL, 1480.

Just after the first of the year, both the Post and the Chronicle reported that Hofheinz and Hooper had filed for a station in San Antonio on 860. I believe this project did finally make it on the air.