Things have their cycles, I guess. Sports dynasties, restaurants, celebrity staying power, fashion, and lots more. Dynasties end due to changing technology, changing tastes, old age, or occasionally by choice. Some things just run their course while others die from a lack of attention and nurture. Usually it’s a combination of things. This story is about something cool that died and how I contributed to that death.

@StroeJummer is a Montana photographer I follow on Twitter for his political thoughts and his beautiful photos. I gather that he pays his bills by photographing homes for sale for realtors and fills his cup and his tip jar by shooting unique Montana scenery, wildlife and places. A couple weeks ago I immediately stopped scrolling when I saw this amazing photo he posted…

It’s the 1947 Art Deco home of AM 1340, KPRK, on the banks of the Yellowstone River in Livingston, Montana. In 30+ years in radio I’ve worked in Quonset huts, double-wides, windowless administration buildings, and a couple pretty swanky modern office spaces. But KPRK was the coolest place to ever regularly originate modulated music and information. In 1995 KPRK was owned by the Holter family who had decades of success owning a handful of small town Montana stations and super-serving those communities. They had a full-time, live airstaff, one and one-half news people, and covered a LOT of Park High sporting events live. The mid-morning Swap Shop show was appointment listening – they even let you call in live to personally describe your old mattress, grill, Ford pickup, or goat that you were peddling. That was the year that a mutual friend set me up with my (future) wife Jackie…who happened to be the one-half member of the news staff referenced above. I was working 20 miles away in Bozeman at the time. Working for a slightly larger Mom and Pop radio operation.

In a few years my Mom & Pop station was sold to a regional aggregator of radio signals. Mom & Pop moved on and I was promoted to station manager. The regional radio aggregator also bought KPRK – not because they wanted it, but because the Holters had managed to also obtain a new Construction Permit (FCC license) for an FM station licensed to Livingston. KPRK and what would soon become KXLB 100.7 FM were added to our Bozeman “cluster” of stations and now I was the boss of 5 signals (though KXLB would never be operated out of Livingston.) Poor KPRK became the 5th (honestly the 6th behind the elusive NTR*) priority in our group. I mean, I couldn’t even really receive the station in Bozeman. Pretty soon the regional radio aggregator sold off their hundred or so stations to THE national radio aggregator. The national radio aggregator was in 49 states, but not Montana, so this sale gave them a nice opening line for their press release announcing the acquisition.

Look at the above picture again. I see the past, present, and future in that shot. The sign at the right proudly announcing KPRK’s inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places only slightly diminishes the harshness of the decay that is evident. Oh, there’s still audio coming out of the tower in the background, but it originates from KMMS-AM in Bozeman…which, actually, hardly originates anything, rather surviving on satellite-delivered right-wing vengeance talk served up by syndicators and (now further) relayed one final hop over the mountain pass to Livingston. When I left Bozeman in 2005 there was already corporate pressure to turn out the lights, free the final few Livingston-based humans of any responsibility and simulcast KPRK. And despite some earnest, Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney efforts to buy KPRK and put on a local show, that was never happening. In fact, when I suggested to my Regional VP that we really should sell KPRK for the benefit of all involved, I was admonished: “We are in the business of buying stations, not selling them.” (This is the same company that now regularly just turns in AM radio licenses back to the FCC.)

I get it. Honestly, I. Get. It. There’s really no place for a 1,000-watt AM station in a 10,000 person town in 2022. However (for those who don’t know) Livingston is pretty unique and extremely artsy. Imagine if they had managed to obtain a 10-watt FM translator and rebroadcast KPRK-AM on the FM band (as is a common practice today to save AM stations). And imagine if the cool, old art-Deco building had been re-imagined as some sort of artsy co-op place where a dozen of Livingston’s creators could affordably rent a small place to make their jewelry, write their novels or design their dwellings…all while keeping that one studio operational for the locals to take 2-hour turns playing their music, or preaching their gospel, or announcing their high school sports clashes to the community. That could have worked.

On the banks of the Yellowstone River

What a location! (see the tower?) And neither photo shows the backdrop of the Absaroka Mountains across the river to the south. I can still remember one of the DJs there telling me how he used to walk out back and fish for a few minutes before his shift started (or even during Paul Harvey). And I laughed this week when my wife reminded me how back in the 90s the boss used to leave her notes reminding her to (illegally) turn up the power at night while she engineered the basketball and football play by play.

“We” owned it, didn’t appreciate it, and chose to let it wither and die. Sigh. I however did buy a print of the photo from @StroeJummer.

2025 UPDATE: The station is now locally owned (currently dark) and the building is being raised (above potential flood waters) and renovated. Programming will hopefully resume in 2026. Follow KPRK on Instagram to keep up on their progress.

* NTR = Non Traditional Revenue… and was a corporate priority back before national radio aggregators shifted to trying to make extra money from their radio station websites. For a while there radio managers were encouraged to make extra money in any way possible. Put on a show! Sell the naming rights to your studio (broadcasting from the Les Schwab Tires studio….while the station down the hall was broadcasting from the Stockman’s Bank Studio) or maybe lease your AM tower site to a farmer to grow hay (not even kidding)