'Birth of cable TV' in Mahanoy City celebrated at 75th anniversary of Service Electric

Jun. 10—Paul Coombe was in second grade on Oct. 8, 1956, when the New York Yankees faced the Brooklyn Dodgers in the fifth game of the World Series.

The minute school let out, young Coombe raced through downtown Mahanoy City to the Service Electric appliance store at Main and Pine streets.

There, with his older brothers and a sizable crowd, Coombe witnessed one of the great moments in Major League baseball history — the Yankees' Don Larson pitching a perfect game — on a television in the store's window.

The memory of seeing Larson strike out the 27th batter, almost as if he were among the nearly 65,000 fans in Yankee Stadium, remains vivid in Coombe's mind 67 years later.

"The people on the sidewalk were screaming," recalled Coombe, a retired teacher and historian of the Mahanoy Area Historical Society.

That handful of devoted baseball fans was able to view that historic moment because of the genius of John Walson (Walsonavich), widely viewed as a pioneer of cable television.

In 1948, when television was in its infancy and getting a clear picture on the tube was difficult, Walson erected an antenna on a mountaintop and ran a "cable" to subscribers in Mahanoy City.

It brought clear reception to Mahanoy City, and started a communications revolution that continues to evolve 75 years later.

"This was not just any antenna, it was the antenna that would launch a new era in television and literally change the world," Service Electric Cable TV & Communications, said in a news release marking the company's anniversary. "It was the birth of cable TV."

He saw the future

John Walson was a visionary in more ways than one.

While working as a lineman for the Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., he started Service Electric Appliances in Mahanoy City after World War II.

He realized that GIs returning from the war were eager to fulfill the American Dream for which they had fought. From a storefront at Main and Pine, Walson sold them new General Electric stoves, washers and other appliances.

Around 1947, he began selling black-and-white GE televisions, according to Bill Brayford, retired vice president of Service Electric's North Division.

The market for televisions was hot, and Walson apparently knew it.

Nationwide, sales of television sets went from 7,000 in 1946 to 172,000 in 1948, according to Encyclopedia.com. By 1950, sales hit 5 million.

Walson had a problem, though.

Mahanoy City is in a valley, and the Broad Mountain blocked the signal from fledgling television stations in Philadelphia — Channels 3, 6 and 10.

It was pretty hard to sell TVs when the sound crackled and the images were "snowy."

So when an interested party came into the store, Walson would load a TV on a truck and drive the customer to a mountaintop near New Boston. There, he would connect the TV to an antenna he and his brother Peter had erected.

"The TV would sell itself," Service Electric said in its news release.

Needless to say, that method was not practical in the long run.

Walson's simple but ingenious solution was to run a wire from the antenna to his store, where he connected it to three TVs in the storefront window tuned to ABC, CBS and NBC shows. It drew crowds curious to see this fascinating new medium that could turn their living room into an entertainment center.

Through a verbal agreement, Walson made a move that would immortalize him in the annals of American communications: He strung cable lines on PPL utility poles throughout Mahanoy City and connected homes to Service Electric Co. Community Antenna System.

Grew rapidly

What began as a strategy for selling televisions grew into Service Electric Cable TV, which expanded beyond Mahanoy City in the 1950s. In 1955, Walson purchased a cable system with 900 customers in Bethlehem. From atop South Mountain, it would eventually extend service to much of the Lehigh Valley.

Service Electric created TV2, which delivered local sports and news to subscribers, in 1969. Its newscasts were the nation's first live color news programs produced by a cable company, according to Service Electric.

In 1972, it was the first cable company in the nation to offer Home Box Office.

While others have laid claim to establishing the first cable television system, the U.S. Congress and the National Cable TV Association recognized Walson's pioneering efforts in 1979. Upon his death in 1993, he was inducted into the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame.

John E. Walson, the founder's eldest son, expanded the company into broadband and fiber optic technologies. His son, John M. Walson, is currently president of Service Electric.

In a 2022 interview in Lehigh Valley Business, John M. Walson said Service Electric began offering internet service around 1995-96.

"The most dramatic changes I've seen in the technology are the increases in speed, plus improvement in the quality and reliability of the internet connection," John M. Walson said.

With more people working at home post-pandemic, he said, the next goal is to deliver speeds beyond 1 gigabit to keep up with demand.

"As everything moves toward using reliable, high-speed internet connection, our focus will be on making sure we can deliver that to our customers," John M. Walson said. "We are constantly implementing new technologies to provide cutting-edge services to our customers."

The right time

Other than a Service Electric logo on a medical building, there's little else to mark the role a small town in the anthracite coal fields of northern Schuylkill County played in the development of cable television in America.

Indeed, besides Service Electric, there was another early cable company in town, City TV, which Walson eventually bought.

And Luther Holt, who ran an electronics school in Mahanoy City, devised technological equipment for Service Electric's early cable system.

Asked what it was that brought these forces together at the same time in a small coal town, Coombe suggested it was no accident.

"When the time is right, people eager for success will succeed," he said, paraphrasing the writer Malcolm Gladwell. "It all came together at the right time."

Contact the writer: rdevlin@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6007