Peak, hotel may solve puzzle

Ogden's historic KLO (AM-1430) has been somewhat of a mystery over the years. In the past when I've written stories on call letters and what they mean, I've never included the station for lack of information.

However, I've finally come across a source that leads me to believe the "LO" in the station's call letters is a direct reference to the LO in Ben Lomond, a significant Weber County name.

The radio station may have been named for the Ben Lomond Hotel, according to Paul Wilson's "A History of Salt Lake City AM Radio" on www.oldradio.com.

The Ben Lomond Hotel, 2510 Washington Blvd., was built in 1927. That's where KLO housed its studios for many years.

Looking at a 1957 photo of Ogden shows KLO call letters attached to the sixth floor of the 13-story hotel.

The hotel was named for Ben Lomond Peak. At 9,712 feet, it is the second-tallest mountain in Weber County, but it's the most prominent peak when looking northward from town. The taller Willard Peak is even further northward and appears shorter, less impressive.

Dan Jessop, current KLO operations manager, said he's never heard the Ben Lomond reference before. He always assumed the "O" in KLO had some sort of reference to Ogden.

Joey Santarelli of Roy, who has roots in Ogden-area radio, said he always believed the LO callers represented "Logan/Ogden." So, that's another possibility.

But just as Ben Lomond Peak was the inspiration for the exaggerated mountain peak in the Paramount Pictures' logo, I'm still betting the mountain (and same-named hotel) inspired the KLO call letters. (According to Leslie Halliwell's "Mountain of Dreams," a biography of Paramount founder William Hodkinson, who grew up in Ogden, the logo was "a memory of childhood in his home state of Utah.")

"A History of Weber County," by Richard C. Roberts and Richard W. Sadler, states that KLO were not the station's original call letters, nor was the station the first one in Ogden. KDZL was the city's first radio station, in 1922, followed by KFPC in 1923 and KFUR and KFWA in 1924.

Many of the earliest call letters, such as those for the Ogden stations, didn't stand for anything in particular — they may have been assigned by the government.