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EDUCATION & RESEARCH > LIBRARY > COLLECTIONS > MANUSCRIPTS ARCHIVE
 LEROY E. "ED" PARSONS COLLECTION |
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Born in Oregon, Parsons attended engineering trade schools and worked as the chief engineer for Bridal Veil Timber Company, Harris Machine Works of OR, and purchased radio station KAST in 1942. He also served as a communications engineer and assistant to the president of Wein Airlines, sales manager and field engineer for Northern Radio Company of Seattle. He was a commercial airlines pilot. In cooperation with the Scandinavian Air Force, Parsons built the Alaska communications system necessary for the first commercial trans-polar flight. He completed construction and initial programming of the first Eskimo-speaking broadcast station, KRBW. As a consulting communications engineer for Husky Oil Company, he was instrumental in Arctic telecommunications development and Husky's commercial network which facilitated oil exploration on the national petroleum reserve in Alaska. However, Mr. Parsons is probably best known for building the first system in the U.S. that used coaxial cable, amplifiers, and a community antenna to deliver television signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast television signals. In 1948, Parsons owned a radio station in Astoria, Oregon. A year earlier he and his wife had first seen television at a broadcasters’ convention in Chicago. His wife wanted a set. In the spring of 1948, the first TV station in Seattle announced plans to go on the air, and Parsons worked with them to see how best to get the signal to Astoria. He found that with a large antenna he could receive the signal on the roof of the Astoria Hotel and from there he ran coaxial cable across the street to his apartment. When the station went on the air in November, 1948, Parsons was the only one in town able to see television. Soon others in town wanted the same service, and Parsons helped them hook up to the system. He charged them a fee for his work and materials but never instituted a monthly service charge. In May, 1968, Parsons was acknowledged as the father of community antenna television. A granite monument was erected at the base of the famed "Astoria Column" on Coxcomb Hill. The inscription reads: "Site of the first community antenna television installation in the United States completed February 1949 Astoria, Oregon. Cable television was invented and developed by L. E. (Ed) Parsons on Thanksgiving Day, 1948. The system carried the first TV transmission by KRSC-TV, Channel 5, Seattle. This marked the beginning of Cable TV."* Parsons was a member of the NCTA Pioneer Club. He was a member of the OX 5 Club and chairman of the President's Committee for Hiring the Handicapped. He authored a number of articles for trade journals and was profiled in The Last of the Bush Pilots, The Great Land and Alaska Today. * From CATV: A History of Community Antenna Television by Mary Alice Mayer Phillips, Northwestern University Press, 1972 and www.cablecenter.org
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The Leroy E. “Ed” Parsons Collection was donated to the National Cable Museum at Penn State in 1986 by Mr. Parsons during an oral history interview with Richard Barton. Richard Barton requested involvement in the handling of the collection, to the extent that he could report to Mr. Parsons about the manner in which it was arranged. To that end, The Cable Center has tried to preserve the order implemented by Penn State.
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The collection contains an array of correspondence, newspaper clippings and articles, legal agreements, and awards and certificates made to Mr. Parsons for his work. Some of the materials deal with the development of cable in Astoria, Oregon and other systems in the Northwest. Additionally, much of the material deals with Mr. Parson’s work in aircraft communications in Alaska and elsewhere.
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CATV
This series contains correspondence and legal agreements concerning Mr. Parson’s efforts to establish CATV in Astoria, Oregon. These sub-series are arranged chronologically.
Location: Box 1
Date Range: 1948
Folder Listing:
FF 1 Correspondence 5/18/1949 - 6/29/1950
FF 2 Legal Agreements 1/1/1950 - 4/30/1950
TV Correspondence
This series contains both typed and holographic correspondence, primarily in response to the publication of two pieces authored by Mr. Parsons on his high-gain antenna in the November 1949 issue of the Sylvania News, and a piece entitled “Small Town Television” in the April 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics. The series is arranged chronologically. Additionally, two sub-series were added. The first is a series of letters and telegrams from Marion Crowell to Radio & Electronics Company of Astoria. The second is multiple copies of a letter, with minor variations, written by Byron E. Roman providing technical and cost information on cable equipment. These sub-series are also arranged chronologically.
Location: Box 1
Date Range: 1948
Folder Listing:
FF 3 Miscellaneous Correspondence 12/7/1949 - 3/29/1950
FF 4 Miscellaneous Correspondence 3/31/1950 - 6/26/1951
FF 5 Correspondence to & from Marion Crowell 12/19/1949 - 3/23/1950
FF 6 Correspondence from Byron E. Roman 1/6/1950 - 1/19/1950
Professional Correspondence
This series contains correspondence relating to materials presented at assorted conferences, and inquiries regarding his professional career. The series is arranged chronologically.
Location: Box 1
Date Range: 1948
Folder Listing:
FF 7 Correspondence 11/4/1949 - 6/29/1950
FF 8 Correspondence 2/15/1952 - 8/9/1972
Certificates and Awards
This series contains photocopies of awards made to Mr. Parsons for his work. It also contains a program for a marker dedicated to Mr. Parsons in 1968. The monument is at the site of the first community antenna television installation in the United States in Astoria, OR. This program was removed from materials donated by G.L. Davenport, as his collection contained duplicate copies. The series is arranged chronologically.
Location: Box 1
Date Range: 1948
Folder Listing:
FF 9 Certificates and Awards n.d., 1962, 9/6/1963, 5/23/1968, 6/23/1969, 1981
Alaska
This series contains correspondence and the 1975 contract for services to set up an educational radio/television station in Barrow, Alaska. The series is arranged chronologically.
Location: Box 1
Date Range: 1948
Folder Listing:
FF 10 Correspondence and Contracts 8/17/1961 - 11/12/1975
Articles
This series contains various periodical and newspaper pieces concerning Mr. Parsons and/or his inventions. The series is arranged chronologically.
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