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07.21.2004
1903. Block Island gets the latest buzz
The Providence Journal's Block Island Wireless debuted Thursday, July 9, 1903, and would last through 45 issues until Saturday, Aug. 29.
Though the Wireless would become Block Island's first -- and, as of 2004, only -- daily newspaper, The Journal had ulterior motives in publishing the four-page paper that summer.
In the spring, The Journal had purchased two wireless telegraph stations from Lee De Forest, a radio pioneer and early rival of wireless inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The two stations, at Point Judith on the mainland and Mohegan Bluffs on the island, cost $3,275, plus $300 for installation.
The Block Island Wireless was intended as an intensive practical test of the De Forest wireless system, which would be used to send news from the mainland to the island.
It was also an opportunity for The Journal to grab publicity. The Block Island Wireless joined a paper published by the Los Angeles Times on Catalina Island as the only newspapers in the world to receive their news by wireless, a primitive radio system that used long and short buzzing sounds to represent the dots and dashes of Morse code.
"The Block Island Wireless makes its bow to-day," the paper said in its first editorial. "It hopes that it will be appreciated and it will do its utmost to be worth the nickel which you pay for it. . . . Of course everything that happens on this earth of ours will not appear in the Wireless -- space forbids, nothing else -- but you won't have to wait for the 'big' events until the mainland papers arrive: not if the Wireless's boys know it."
The paper's headquarters near the Southeast Lighthouse was a one-room affair, serving as editorial and advertising offices, as well as composing room and printing plant -- besides being the kitchen, dining room and parlor for the four-person staff, who slept in a loft above. Despite having the latest technology for receiving the news, living conditions were rustic. The staff hunted in the tall grass for bird eggs and hauled drinking water from a nearby spring.
The stream of news from the mainland began each day at 4:16 p.m. with stock quotes and ended at 2:45 a.m. When static or the screeching of the fog horn at the lighthouse prevented use of the wireless, the staff used conventional telegraph, connected to the mainland by a cable under the sea. The staff finished setting movable type by hand by 3:20 a.m., with the gasoline-powered press rolling by 3:30.
On Friday, Aug. 28, the day before its final issue, the spunky little daily said its goodbyes.
"The Wireless will go as quietly as it came, but the wireless station will remain a fixture on the island," an editorial said. "During the two months the Wireless has been in existence it has made many fast friends, residents of every part of the civilized world. If the Wireless has been a success, the friends to whom reference has been made are entitled to credit for assistance rendered."
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