Golden Age of Radio

It all began by a terrible freeze in the winter of 1921. An avocado, orange and lemon grower Sam Mosher had lost all his crops and was going broke. At this same time one of the largest oil fields ever found in CA. had just been discovered at Signal Hill near Long Beach. Sam Mosher along with many other curious people went to see what was going on. As Sam watched the wildcat wells being exposed he noticed all the fires at the tops and the natural gasoline that was going up into the atmosphere. He thought what if I could capture that stuff and sell it. It was all history after that. In this first week I will cover this part a little each day from 1922 to 1931. Most people think of Signal as the company with the stop light symbol. Sam Mosher had one problem with his idea to capture this natural gasoline he needed $4000 to get the idea running and one of the large companies let him tap into there well. So he borrowed towards his inheritance from his mother because his dad thought h...

It all began by a terrible freeze in the winter of 1921. An avocado, orange and lemon grower Sam Mosher had lost all his crops and was going broke. At this same time one of the largest oil fields ever found in CA. Had just been discovered on Signal Hill near Long Beach. Sam Mosher along with many other curious people went to see what was going on. As Sam watched the wildcat wells being exposed he noticed all the fires at the tops and the natural gasoline that was going up into the atmosphere. He thought what if I could capture that stuff and sell it. It was all history after that. During this first week I will cover this part a little each day from 1922 to 1931. Below is a picture of what Signal Hill looked like in the 1920's. Most people think of Signal as the company with the stop light symbol. However, the first symbol was crossed flags like the ones pictured on the rail cars below. Sam Mosher had one problem with his idea to capture this natural gasoline he ne...