Television came to most Wyoming and area communities in the 1950s by way of over-the-air broadcast, caught on antennas mounted on towers or housetops. Some places were out of the range of television until the middle 1950s. One such place was Harrison, Neb., where my Johns grandparents lived. Signals first came in from a new station in Scottsbluff (KSTF) that went on the air for the first time on June 1, 1955 and from KDUH Hay Springs, Neb., that went on the air March 5, 1958. My grandparents received a new TV set given to them by their children as a 50th wedding anniversary gift in September 1958. Consoles of the type they got (B&W in those days) sold from $300-$400, a significant sum for the period. People in many communities constructed “television boosters” that improved the quality of signals coming in from distant stations in the area. The promoter of commercial television for the area was Tracy McCracken, who owned the first TV station in Wyoming, at Cheyenne. He thought since Scotts Bluff was at the highest point around in the Nebraska Panhandle, even though it was a national monument, he should be given permission by the National Park Service, to site his transmitter tower on top. The NPS had other thoughts about it. See the entire story of TV and the Scotts Bluff National Monument: Phil Roberts, “Scotts Bluff National Monument and the Coming of Television to the Nebraska Panhandle,” Nebraska History, 1996, 77(1), pp. 21-29
Everything About Wyoming