On September 22, 1927, the Tampa station transmitted the area's first live network sports coverage, a heavyweight bout pitting champion Gene Tunney against challenger Jack Dempsey, live from Soldier Field in Chicago. The response was tremendous.
"Eardrums of 40- to 50,000 Tampans will be tuned in tonight on the biggest sporting event in modern history," the Tampa Daily Times speculated that day.
"Interest in the bout has the fever pitch attendant to a national election. And everyone who can but borrow or build a radio is preparing to shut himself away from business and domestic cares with a set of ear phones or a loudspeaker and drink in the details of the encounter."
That night 1,000 guests attended an invitation-only affair sponsored by the Studebaker Gulf Sales Co. There were hundreds of private parties about town, and more than 10,000 fans jammed the streets adjacent to the Tampa Times building to hear sportscaster Graham McNamee call the fight over loudspeakers. The resulting chaos forced traffic to be rerouted and streetcars halted.
By that winter, WDAE had moved from Bay Isles to a bungalow on the Marjorie Park Yacht Basin and was broadcasting moonlight concerts by Harold Bachman's Million Dollar Band, direct from the Plant Park band shell.
Bachman would go on to lead the University of Florida's Gator Marching Band in later years.
Longtime air personality "Salty" Sol Fleischman was broadcasting from the Moulin Rouge Night Club on 22nd Street one Saturday night when the place was raided on suspicions of illegal gambling. Claude Harris' Band was the evening's featured entertainment, and the show went on as usual, without any on-air mention of the incident.
Levins had been the subject of an attempted lynching while in custody at the Hillsborough County Jail on Pierce Street the previous May, and by the time the National Guard dispersed the crowd five people were reported dead and nearly 40 had been wounded.
WDAE was granted a full-time license on November 15, 1929, a move that resulted in a change of frequency - from 620 to 1240 - and an expanded time slot that included a morning stretch from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The station joined the CBS network on June 30, 1931, and moved from Marjorie Park to the Allied Building at Cass and Tampa streets, its transmitter installed at the country club area of Forest Hills.
With the onset of the Great Depression, listening to the radio became North America's favorite pastime, entertaining with the antics of "Fibber McGee and Molly," chills of "The Shadow" and heroic adventures of "The Lone Ranger."
By 1935 there were at least three radio stations broadcasting in the Tampa area - WFLA, WSUN and WDAE.
In addition to mild escapism, network listeners used their radios to keep up with Charles Lindbergh's landing in Paris, the Hindenburg's explosion in New Jersey, and the single-round Joe Louis/Max Schmeling fight.
The world was fast becoming a smaller place.
Tampa society made national news when more than 60 stations carried the first nationwide broadcast of the Gasparilla Coronation Ball on February 2, 1937.
And, sad to say, the city was drawn in like the rest of the country when Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast horrified and entertained the masses over the local CBS affiliate.
Clear Channel should be so lucky.