The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Chuck Neff, special for The Quill
La Harpe native Harold W. Arlin was the person who opened the world of broadcast media to an audience in the 1920's, from which evolved the entire broadcast spectrum that today includes Television broadcasting, Internet broadcasts, and Podcasting.
Harold Wampler Arlin was born in La Harpe, Illinois on December 8, 1895. His father, Byron Arlin (1862-1918) was a farmer, and his mother was Emma (Wampler) Arlin (1865-1944). Arlin also had an older sibling, a sister named Lora.
When Harold was an infant, the Arlin family moved from La Harpe to Carthage, Missouri, where Harold Arlin grew up and graduated from Carthage High School.
He attended the University of Kansas and graduated with an Engineering Degree in 1917. Following his college graduation, he obtained a job with the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh as an electrical engineer and plant foreman.
On November 2, 1920, radio station KDKA-AM (1020 kHz), located in Pittsburgh and owned by the Westinghouse Company, received its broadcasting license from federal regulators, making the station the first commercially licensed radio station in the world.
On that same day, twenty-four-year-old Harold Arlin was invited by his friend and fellow Westinghouse engineer, Dr. Frank Conrad, to tour KDKA's first studio, located in a makeshift shack on the rooftop of a Westinghouse factory. Conrad was one of the founders of KDKA.
In the studio, Arlin was invited to say a few words into a nearby microphone. Arlin later described the primitive microphone as "looking like a tomato can with a felt lining. We called it a mushophone." His voice, featuring his Midwestern accent, proved clear, friendly, crisp, and appealing.
Harold Arlin was hired on the spot as a full-time announcer for KDKA (while still employed by the parent Westinghouse Company), making Arlin the world's first radio announcer in the history of the broadcast medium.
That evening (November 2, 2020) KDKA-AM went on-air with its first broadcast. It was also Election Day in America, and the first program was wholly devoted to reporting live election returns for the 1920 Presidential Election between Warren G. Harding and James Cox, which resulted in a landslide win for Harding.
As the announcer for radio's initial broadcast, Arlin updated election results over the airwaves for nine hours that evening. It is believed that only about 500 listeners scattered around the United States east of the Rocky Mountains heard Arlin and KDKA-AM on this first commercial radio broadcast.
Besides being the world's first staff radio announcer, Harold Arlin was also the world's first sports broadcaster or "sportscaster."
He was the radio announcer for the first baseball game broadcast, the first tennis match broadcast, the first football game broadcast, and the first broadcast of a boxing match.
The first-ever pioneering radio broadcast of a sporting event was held in Pittsburgh at Forbes Field when Harold Arlin provided play-by-play coverage of the Pittsburgh Pirates – Philadelphia Phillies baseball game on August 5, 1921.
Arlin sat in a ground-level box seat in the stadium behind home plate and spoke into a converted telephone as a microphone, with the game broadcast over KDKA (which is still the radio-home of the Pittsburgh Pirates). The Pirates beat the visiting Phillies that day by a score of 8-5 in a quick game that only lasted for one hour and fifty-seven minutes.
Sadly, no recording exists of this historic radio program or any of Harold Arlin's other "first-ever" broadcasts.
Pat Hughes, the Chicago Cubs longtime play-by-play announcer and a student of baseball broadcasting history, wrote that "Harold Arlin was a pioneer. While his first attempt was probably a bit awkward, it did begin radio's marriage to baseball, a match made in heaven that continues to thrive to this very day."
On the next day following the first baseball broadcast (August 6, 1921), Arlin and KDKA made history when he announced the first Tennis Match broadcast on radio from Allegheny Country Club in Pittsburgh. In the Davis Cup match broadcast that day, Australia defeated Great Britain by a score of 3-2.
KDKA made radio history again on October 8, 1921 when they broadcast the first-ever football game on the medium. On that date, Harold Arlin sat in the same Forbes Field box seat he used to broadcast the Pirates-Phillies baseball game two months earlier.
He provided play-by-play commentary to radio listeners of the game featuring the University of Pittsburgh football squad against West Virginia University. Pittsburgh won the game that day by a score of 21-13.
Nearly two years later, Harold Arlin announced KDKA's broadcast of the Jack Dempsey-Luis Firpo heavyweight championship boxing match on September 14, 1923, which was the first boxing match heard over the radio airwaves.
Arlin was not physically present for the fight, which was held in New York City and won by Dempsey. In his Pittsburgh studio, Arlin did a recreation over the radio of the event reading from a wire report sent live to him from ringside.
In 1923, Arlin was the announcer for KDKA's first shortwave broadcast, which was broadcast to audiences in Great Britain, but could also be heard in other parts of the world. Arlin's voice was heard in Europe, South Africa, and Australia via shortwave radio.
This gave Arlin international notoriety and popularity throughout the world. The Times of London reported that Arlin was "the best known American voice in Europe." During this time, he became known as the "Voice of America" to his overseas listeners.
Arlin is also believed to be the first to utilize the "celebrity interview." While employed as the staff announcer at KDKA, he interviewed orator/politician William Jennings Bryan, movie actress Lillian Gish, British statesman David Lloyd George, humorist Will Rogers, future-President Herbert Hoover, French general Ferdinand Foch and baseball legend Babe Ruth.
He later recalled that Babe Ruth had a terrible case of "mike fright" and that Arlin had to take the prepared script out of the Babe's hands and read it himself as if he were "The Babe" speaking, while Ruth actually sat there silently and nervously smoked.
Harold Arlin was voted the most popular radio announcer in America in 1924. In 1925, he was a founder of the Radio Announcers of America organization.
After five years of broadcasting full-time for KDKA, Harold Arlin wanted to step away from the radio microphone and wished to take on another position within the Westinghouse Company utilizing his engineering & management background.
In 1926, he was assigned by Westinghouse to be the personnel manager for the company's manufacturing plant in Mansfield, Ohio and he moved his family from Pittsburgh, spending the rest of his life as an Ohio resident. He retired from his position at Westinghouse in 1961.
Harold Arlin became very involved in local civic affairs after his relocation to Mansfield and he was elected to the Mansfield Board of Education, serving as its president for sixteen years.
In 1947, the Mansfield school board voted, against Harold Arlin's wishes, to name their new high school football stadium "Arlin Field". When the motion was raised to name it after him he argued against it for over an hour. Years later he said it still made him angry.
"It was the only time in my life when no one would listen to me," Arlin stated.
Arlin Field, which opened that year in Mansfield with a capacity of 12,500 and still in use, is considered today as being one of the crown jewels of high school football stadiums in Ohio.
On November 4, 1952, Harold Arlin temporarily returned to radio, announcing his first radio broadcast in twenty-seven years. The broadcast was sponsored by Arlin's employer, Westinghouse, and was intended to commemorate the 32nd Anniversary of KDKA's pioneering broadcast of the 1920 Election results.
Like the Harding-Cox presidential election returns from 1920, Arlin read the results of the 1952 Eisenhower-Stevenson election over the air to an entire nation of listeners, with "Ike" defeating Stevenson in that day's presidential election.
Later on following his retirement, Harold Arlin was lured back to Pittsburgh to broadcast a baseball game for the Pirates on two different occasions.
In 1966, the team celebrated his broadcasting achievements hosting a "Harold Arlin Day" in his honor. He broadcast an inning in the radio booth that day.
On August 30, 1972, he was invited back into the Pirate's radio booth by Pirates Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Prince for a game between Pittsburgh and the San Diego Padres. Prince and Arlin shared microphone duties for a few innings.
Harold Arlin's grandson, Steve Arlin, was the starting pitcher for the Padres that day. His grandfather "called" an inning his grandson pitched, announcing the game via the Pirates radio network, with KDKA-AM being its flagship station. Steve Arlin took the "loss" for the Padres in that game, with the Pirate's winning by a score of 11-0.
Steve Arlin (1945-2016), Harold's grandson, pitched for the San Diego Padres and the Cleveland Indians during his six-season major league career.
As a college baseball player at Ohio State, Steve Arlin pitched the OSU Buckeyes to a second-place finish in the 1965 College World Series (CWS), losing the title to Arizona State University. In 1966, he led Ohio State to winning the NCAA Baseball championship and was named the CWS most valuable player that year.
Steve Arlin had a 0.96 ERA in 47 College World Series innings in 1965-1966 and is the all-time ERA leader in CWS play.
In retirement, Harold Arlin and his wife split time between their Ohio home and Bakersfield, California, where they lived during the winter months. Arlin was in Bakersfield when he suffered a major heart attack, resulting in his death there on March 14, 1986. He was 90 years old.
Harold W. Arlin was buried in Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, Ohio.
Residents of La Harpe and west-central Illinois can be proud that one of its native sons pioneered the constantly evolving world of broadcasting. Harold Arlin will forever be noted for his many achievements in early radio broadcasting and sportscasting history.
It might be hard for some to fathom, but La Harpe was the birthplace of the individual who became the first radio announcer in America and the world and was also the first "Sportscaster" who called a sporting event over the radio airwaves – Harold W. Arlin.