It’s difficult to watch the major TV stations in Seattle and not see the ads for the Shen Yun Chinese dance troupe for whom the adjective “fantastic” is an understatement. The production is to be held, according to the ads, at Seattle’s McCaw Hall. How the McCaw brothers must gnash their teeth when they see that. It’s bad enough when it’s called, simply, McCaw Hall.
Why? Because the McCaw brothers were the principle suppliers of money to build that structure, donating $20 million, and they did so only if it would be named “Marion Oliver McCaw Hall”, after their mother. There is a shrinking list of local citizens that continues to shrink who remember that Marion Oliver McCaw was a Centralia girl who happened to marry a dynamo of a man, J. Elroy McCaw, and they produced sons who eventually outdid their father in the financial world.
To begin, J. Elroy — as I’ll call him from now on — was one of three people who put up enough cash to put a local radio station (KELA) on the air back on November 1, 1937. Not knowing any of the details, I suspect that, perhaps, J. Oliver’s investment may have come as a result of the support of his new wife’s family — owners of the Lewis & Clark Hotel, in downtown Centralia. It is now apartments.
At any rate, he eventually parlayed that ownership into seven radio stations, ranging from the Hawaiian Islands to New York City. Old timers here might also remember that he also owned the only cable company in Centralia and Chehalis. He once offered me a job in that undertaking and I’m glad I didn’t accept it because local cable companies became obsolete when the big guns took over.
That wasn’t enough for J. Elroy, though. He had eventually acquired full ownership of KELA, and later sold the station to its manager, Joe Chytil. But J. Elroy continued to invest in communications before turning everything over to his sons. They kept up the pace until they were able to sell out to AT&T for $11.5 billion dollars. Yes, that’s “billion.” A $20 million donation to build The Marion Oliver McCaw Hall made it the center for all major performing arts in the Pacific Northwest. I just wish people could get its name straight.
I mentioned in an earlier paragraph that J. Elroy owned seven radio stations. There was a Federal Communication Commission law back then that limited the maximum number any individual could own to seven. There was another ruling as well, that a newspaper could not own a radio station in the same town. I think they were good laws and served our democracy, but they became obsolete, made so by new laws enacted when the balance of power in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives switched from the Democrats to the Republicans. Those with the most money began buying up as many broadcast facilities as they could and switched the radio stations’ formats to “Talk Shows” and their political agendas became all their listeners heard.
I mentioned that J. Elroy had sold KELA to Joe Chytil. The only “talk show” on the station in those days was the one I named and instigated, “Let’s Talk About It.” The emphasis back then was on studio guests discussing positive things happening here in Lewis County. After I retired Joe passed away, leaving ownership to his widow and children. I understand that ownership later expanded with additional family members until the station was sold to an owner with multiple outlets across the country. Currently KELA is owned by Bicoastal Media.
All that remains of the “old” KELA is an occasional mention of “Record Roundtable” by retired citizens who listened to it back when they were teenagers and I was an up and coming DJ.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
