Historic KFUO tower removed from seminary campus

Children and other onlookers inspect the downed KFUO Radio tower on April 3 on the campus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. (LCMS/Frank Kohn)

By Cheryl Magness

If you were anywhere in the vicinity of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (CSL), in the early morning hours of Good Friday, April 3, you might have heard a loud boom, and maybe the ground even shook a little, shortly after 7 a.m. The cause? After a year-and-a-half of disuse, the old KFUO Radio broadcast tower that has long been a fixture on the seminary campus was knocked down and removed. Members of the seminary community gathered with KFUO Radio staff and others to mark the event.

Lucy Hensley, 14, was one of the approximately 300 people who turned out to see history being made.

“It was the morning of Good Friday.” Hensley said. “The grass was wet with [the previous day’s] rain, and it was delightfully cool. We set up lawn chairs by the chapel, with a clear view of the tower, excited to see it fall. As it hit the ground, dirt burst forth from under it. … Once it was safe, everyone approached the tower, which was very contorted by the impact. … My dad commented on how crazy it would be if it stood tall again three days later! Everything about it was epic, and even if the actual falling only lasted a few seconds, I am very glad to have seen it fall and to have witnessed history being made.”

Lucy’s 12-year-old brother, Tom, added, “When we saw it after it fell, its tip literally dug into the ground. … From the side, it looked … a lot shorter than when it was standing upright.”

(LCMS/Frank Kohn)

The main impetus for the tower’s removal is the launch of a major, multi-year update and expansion that will involve much of the CSL campus, including the land on which the tower stood. But while changes at CSL were the primary driver for the removal of the tower, the result has been exciting change for KFUO as well.

As explained by KFUO Executive Director Gary Duncan, “When we were asked to move our broadcasting off campus for the CSL expansion, I began to look for areas in which to buy land and build a tower site for KFUO. During that search, I discovered an AM station with an FM translator [an FM signal that simulcasts a parent station’s signal] and two separate tower sites for sale and discovered it would be less expensive to buy it than it would be to find a location and go through all the necessary surveying, planning, environmental studies, regulatory approvals and construction for a new tower.”

After further research, and with the approval of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s (LCMS) Board of Directors, the LCMS purchased KXFN 1380 AM. The station has an FM translator that broadcasts on 105.3 FM. In addition, the opportunity arose to purchase another translator at 104.5 FM. KFUO 850 AM, as the parent company, now has three FM translators, resulting in a significantly increased reach in the St. Louis broadcast area.

“Now we are heard throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area 24 hours a day on FM,” Duncan explained. “KFUO AM is an FCC licensed daytime (sunrise to sunset) station only. But we are allowed to continue broadcasting on the FM signals 24/7. The translators cover an area of over 2 million in population. 104.5 FM serves downtown St. Louis, Metro East, and parts of North St. Louis County. Our 105.3 FM translator serves St. Louis midtown, South St. Louis County, most of West St. Louis County and parts of Jefferson County. And our 92.7 FM translator serves St. Charles County and parts of Lincoln and Warren County.”

The week before the historic tower’s removal had seen some windy days in the St. Louis area. Because the tower could only be safely removed if the wind was under 15 miles per hour, there was some doubt up until Friday morning whether the tower would come down that day. But the weather cooperated, and those who gathered were able to witness the toppling of a piece of LCMS history. While they waited, onlookers chatted and enjoyed a snack or beverage while children climbed nearby trees, hoping to get a better look.

An excavator removes pieces of the historic KFUO Radio tower. (LCMS/Frank Kohn)

Vicki Biggs, senior vice-president of Seminary Advancement and chief communications officer at CSL, said, “Concordia Seminary treasures its shared history with KFUO Radio that dates to the station’s founding in 1924. We celebrate with KFUO its standing as the world’s longest continually owned and operated religious broadcast station and rejoice in its broad reach today over both AM and FM and also its worldwide reach via the internet.

“As the seminary celebrates its 100th anniversary of operations on its Clayton, Mo., campus this spring — a time of operations during which the KFUO Radio tower stood, for much of that time, as a landmark — this change ushers in a new chapter on the seminary campus as we look ahead to the next century and beyond of preparing pastors, deaconesses and missionaries to share the Gospel of Christ Jesus.”

KFUO first began broadcasting from the CSL campus in 1927. Almost 90 years later, in 2013, the station moved to the LCMS International Center in Kirkwood, Mo., but the station’s broadcast continued to go out from the tower on the seminary campus until December 2024. With the removal of the tower, an era has truly passed.

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