Then and now: KTHO radio’s 50-year progression

Local radio station KTHO-AM 590 began broadcasting 50 years ago today — St. Patrick’s Day in 1963.

The original studio, transmitter and announcers were in this two-room cabin in a meadow at the end of Karok Street in the remote Spring Creek summer home tract off Highway 89 between Fallen Leaf Lake and Emerald Bay. There were two 305-foot tall orange-and-white radio towers erected at the site, one of which is visible at the left in this photo.

After inaccessible winters there, KTHO relocated the studio and disc jockeys to the lobby of the Tahoe Marina Inn in 1965, and moved the transmitting towers to Pioneer Trail in 1967. KTHO now has its studios and offices in the Heavenly Village at Stateline.

The second photo, 40 years later (and showing the same overhead power lines), reveals how fully that meadow has been restored.The Spring Creek Tract now is closed to winter road access by a U.S. Forest Service gate.

— Bill Kingman