From Holden we head southwest to Paxton, home of the other station in the small Clear Channel Worcester cluster, WSRS (96.1B Worcester), and the studios of both. Asnebumskit Hill is one of the most historic broadcasting locations in the country, but John Shepard's W1XOJ, farther up the hill, usually hogs all the credit. (Surely that's as Shepard would have wanted it.) Few people realize that WSRS is one of the longest continuously-operating FM stations in the world, having started as W1XTG in the late '30s. Although the station began at the WTAG site in Holden, the Telegram and Gazette quickly realized that Asnebumskit Hill was an ideal location for FM broadcasting and moved the station up here in the early '40s. The T&G persevered through the Dark Ages of FM, and WTAG-FM was never shut down even when so many other broadcasters were throwing in the towel on their FM stations. It lasted into the stereo era, when it was sold to Norman Knight's Knight Quality Stations group and became WSRS, “Worcester's Stereo Radio Station”. Much later, Knight would also acquire WTAG, bringing the two stations back under the same roof. (WTAG's studios had always been in the Telegram building downtown.)
The self-supporting tower behind the studio at right is original; the taller guyed tower is a later addition.
Copyright 2005, Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2005-09-03.