Here’s an earlier entry about the history of Yankton, S.D.’s WNAX-AM.

This 1951 proclaims that in South Dakota, “TV means ‘tain’t visible.’”  Radio was the only electronic means of reaching a mass audience.

WNAX launched from Yankton, S.D., in 1922.  Gurney’s Seed and Nursery Company purchased the station in 1926, using WNAX to promote its products and services.  It made Gurney’s a household name.

The station also launched the career of Lawrence Welk, who played daily on WNAX for a decade without pay.  The station also carried a popular program called “Your Neighbor Lady,” which gave listeners a daily supply of household tips, recipes and stories.  The late Wynn Speece hosted the program from 1941 to 2005 and won a Marconi Award in 1992.  Unfortunately, 1983 fire destroyed WNAX’s archival recordings.

The flat landscape of the Upper Great Plains, near-perfect ground conductivity and WNAX’s low 570 kHz position on the AM band sends the station’s 5,000-watts signal over a wade section of the Midwest.  It can be heard as far south as Kansas City and as far north as Fargo.  It is second to KFYR, Bismarck, N.D., in having the largest daytime land coverage of a U.S. radio station. 

Today, WNAX carries news/talk format with a heavy dose of farm-related program.  Saga Communications owns the station, which calls itself “The Voice of the Midwest.”

Source: Wikipedia (WNAX-AM)