Editing WLS (AM) (section)

===Prairie Farmer ownership===
[[File:Prairie Farmer Building, Chicago, IL.jpg|thumb|The Prairie Farmer Building, home to WLS's studios from 1930 to 1960.]]
Sears opened the station in 1924 as a service to farmers and subsequently sold it to the ''[[Prairie Farmer]]'' magazine in 1928.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.wlshistory.com/WLS30/ | title = The Prairie Farmer Days | work = The History of WLS Radio | publisher = Scott Childers | date = May 6, 2010 | access-date = July 30, 2010 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100804071114/http://www.wlshistory.com/WLS30/ | archive-date = August 4, 2010 | df = mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="HistoryCards" /> The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington in Chicago, where it remained for 32 years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wls/studios/index.html |title=A look at the floor plan for the WLS studios in the Prairie Farmer Building-Studio A and its control room are still intact today |publisher=Richsamuels.com |date=February 23, 1967 |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110911114453/http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/wls/studios/index.html |archive-date=September 11, 2011 }}</ref> For a few months after ABC's 1960 purchase of it and the format change, the "bright new sound" that began in May 1960 was broadcast from the Prairie Farmer Building. WLS didn't make the move to downtown Michigan Avenue's [[London Guarantee Building|Stone Container Building]], located at 360 North Michigan Avenue, until October of that year.<ref name="WLS60" /> Thirty years later, it would move once more, to the studios of its then-sister station [[WLS-TV]] at 190 North State Street.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.wlshistory.com/WLS90/ | title = WLS Talkradio 89: The Talk of Chicago | work = The History of WLS Radio | publisher = Scott Childers | date = March 2, 2010 | access-date = July 30, 2010 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100925001409/http://www.wlshistory.com/WLS90/ | archive-date = September 25, 2010 | df = mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fybush.com/sites/2004/site-041001.html |title=WLS move to 190 North State-1990 |publisher=Fybush.com |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111019184353/http://www.fybush.com/sites/2004/site-041001.html |archive-date=October 19, 2011 }}</ref> It was the scene of the ''National Barn Dance'', which featured [[Gene Autry]], [[Pat Buttram]], and [[George Gobel]], and which was second only to the ''[[Grand Ole Opry]]'' (itself a local ''National Barn Dance'' spinoff) in presenting [[country music]] and humor.<ref name="WLS">{{Citation | editor-last = Childers | editor-first = Scott | title = Chicago's WLS Radio | year = 2008 | pages = 11–59 | publisher = Arcadia Publishing | isbn =9780738561943 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wlshistory.com/NBD/ |title=WLS History-National Barn Dance |publisher=Wlshistory.com |date=April 19, 1924 |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111112103519/http://www.wlshistory.com/NBD/ |archive-date=November 12, 2011 }}</ref>

The station also experimented successfully in many forms of news broadcasting, including weather and crop reports. Its most famous news broadcast was the eyewitness report of the [[Hindenburg disaster]] by [[Herbert Morrison (announcer)|Herbert Morrison]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wlshistory.com/audio/morrison-hindenburg.mp3 |title=audio file of Herbert Morrison's account of the Hindenburg Disaster for WLS |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927051418/http://www.wlshistory.com/audio/morrison-hindenburg.mp3 |archive-date=September 27, 2011 }}</ref> Morrison and engineer Charles Nehlsen had been sent to [[New Jersey]] by WLS to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg for delayed broadcast. Their recordings aired the next day on May 7, 1937,<ref>{{cite book |last=Childers |first=Scott |date=2008 |title=Chicago's WLS Radio (Images of America: Illinois) |location=Charleston, SC |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |page=40 |isbn=9780738561943}}</ref> the first time that recordings of a news event were ever broadcast.

In the fall of 1937, the station was one of several Chicago radio stations to donate airtime to [[Chicago Public Schools]] for [[Distance education in Chicago Public Schools in 1937|a pioneering program]] in which the school district provided elementary school students with [[distance education]] amid a [[polio]] outbreak-related school closure.<ref name="washingtonpost.com">{{cite news |last1=Strauss |first1=Valerie |last2=Hines |first2=Michael |title=Perspective {{!}} In Chicago, schools closed during a 1937 polio epidemic and kids learned from home – over the radio |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/03/chicago-schools-closed-during-1937-polio-epidemic-kids-learned-home-over-radio/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=August 16, 2021}}</ref>