Ground was broken on the Lafayette transmitter site of KWME in the fall of 1959. Studios had already been set up at 1822 Mt. Diablo Blvd. in Walnut Creek, the station’s city of license. The building that housed those studios would become the home of Aquarius Pool and Spa Service between 1970 and 2025.
Test broadcasts began in November 1959 and the station was in full operation on December 10, 1959. The Federal Communications Commission license was granted to Walnut Creek Broadcasters, the project of a couple of men already steeped in Bay Area radio history. Eugene Warner and his brother had started pioneering Oakland station KLS (later KWBR, then KDIA) in 1922. F. Wellington Morse had worked at KLS at the beginning as a “combo man”–a jack-of-all-trades job that was common in radio’s early days. Local resident Logan Edwards was part of the initial ownership group (he would be bought out for $1,000 in 1961)
The station’s initial programming was far from unique among Bay Area FM stations of the era: so-called “fine music” capped by a two-hour symphonic presentation in the evening. Morse told the Walnut Creek Sun that the new station would offer what he called “Relaxed Radio”. “It is possible,” he told the newspaper, “that this station will have pauses between selections, pauses between announcements, and a relaxed, subdued approach to you in your home.”
Don Davis, who’d spent many years at KFRC, was hired as an announcer, and may well have been the announcer. The station relied on an automation system and Davis’ voice was omnipresent. He would also be listed as station manager.
In 1961, KWME would join eleven other Bay Area FM stations to promote FM Week and FM Month, using the slogan “Everything Sounds Better on FM Radio”. It was still a battle to convince listeners–and advertisers–that FM could survive.
1962 saw the station move to new facilities in the Walnut Creek Savings and Loan Building on Botelho Drive. Morse said the station needed more space so it could expand its operation. Programming included regular news updates provided by the Contra Costa Times.
In the spring of 1964, Warner and Morse sold the station to an entity called Stereophonic Broadcasters Inc. for $65,000. The purchasing entity was owned by advertising executive Alfred Pettler, who owned 51% of the company, and KDIA employee Harold Hirschmann, who held the remaining 49%. They would soon change the call letters to KDFM.
