WELY (1450 AM) and WELY-FM (94.5 FM) are a pair of simulcast radio stations based in the small tourist destination town of

Ely, Minnesota Ely ( ) is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 3,268 at the 2020 census. Located on the Vermilion iron range, Ely once had several iron ore mines. It is an entry point for campers and canoers into the Bou ...

, United States. WELY serves the

Boundary Waters Canoe Area The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW or BWCA) is a wilderness area within the Superior National Forest in the northeastern part of the US state of Minnesota under the administration of the U.S. Forest Service. A mixture of forests, ...

and Surrounding towns and areas of northeastern Minnesota. Northern MN - 020

WELY (AM) was founded in 1954. The "front porch" studio is downtown, on E. Chapman Street. Both stations share a transmitter site south of town.

History

WELY (AM)

WELY signed on the air on October 2, 1954. WELY's first owner was Charles B. Pearson, who sold the station to WELY Corporation in 1959, and it would be operated as a side business by Vincent T. Hallett for the next 17 years. WELY changed hands again in 1963 when WELY Corporation sold the station to North Central Video, which sold the station to Northern Lakes Corporation in 1967. WELY's next owner would come in 1976, when the Northern Lakes Corporation sold it to BJL Broadcasting Corporation. In 1987, WELY suspended operations for a time due to financial difficulty, which was featured as a news story on

KSTP-TV KSTP-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, serving the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities area as an affiliate of American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is the Flagship (broadcasting), flagsh ...

WELY-FM

WELY-FM signed on the air on July 25, 1992. The original callsign was KQEK, as issued on January 17, 1992, but was changed to WELY-FM on June 5, 1992.

As a pair

WELY was owned by retired

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

broadcaster

Charles Kuralt Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American television, newspaper and radio journalist and author. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on '' The CBS Evenin ...

from 1995 until his death on July 4, 1997. In 1999, WELY-AM-FM transferred from the estate of Suzanna Baird Kuralt to her estate's executors, Susan Bowers & Lisa Bowers White, who sold the stations to Alice L. Hill & Janice Nagel Erickson, a

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

transplant. In 2005, it was purchased by the

Bois Forte Band of Chippewa Bois Forte Band of Chippewa (Ojibwe language: ''Zagaakwaandagowininiwag'', "Men of the Thick Fir-woods"; commonly but erroneously shortened to ''Zagwaandagaawininiwag'', "Men of the Thick Boughs") are an Ojibwe Band located in northern Minnesota, ...

. The stations went silent on Thursday, December 1 2022 as the transition began to the new owner Zoe Communications, Inc. of Shell Lake, Wis. The company owns 17 radio stations, including numerous outlets in smaller markets similar to Ely. WELY plans to return to the air when the FCC grants the transfer which normally takes about 90 days.

References

External links