MAGNOLIA BAND MADE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC
By Judith Linsley
Beaumont had a lively music scene in the 1920s, promoted by such groups as the Music Study Club, the Music Department of the Women's Club, the Beaumont Musical Society, the Mendelssohn Club, and the Beaumont Music Commission. Other groups, such as the Mozart Violin Choir and the Beaumont High School String Quartet, performed.
The Kyle Theatre imported music from all over the world, from classical singers Harry Lauder and Amelita Galli-Curci and world-class violinist Fritz Kreisler to popular Vaudeville acts.
One of the most popular local groups was the Magnolia Band, sponsored by the Magnolia Refinery, Beaumont's biggest employer at that time. Under the baton of Dr. Harry Cloud, who had personally built it up "player by player" with refinery employees since its organization in 1922, it performed locally and earned wider fame as well. In the fall of 1923 the band played at both the Dallas Fair and the Southeast Texas Fair in Beaumont.
In early January 1924 the Magnolia Band's fame suddenly expanded when one of its local concerts was relayed by private telephone line to Dallas and from there broadcast "to all parts of the world." Congratulatory telegrams soon came from as far away as Chicago, Minneapolis, Manitoba and Winnipeg. The relay distance, 396 "wire miles" to Dallas, represented a record for clear transmission.
The concert started something. On January 21, Magnolia Petroleum Company ordered a $35,000 radio broadcasting station for the Beaumont refinery. The station applied for a Class B license, the "highest class." Beaumont Magnolia Refinery manager E.E. Plumly, a music aficionado, was credited with putting the idea for the station into the heads of his superiors.
Two days later, John Philip Sousa, the internationally known conductor and composer, brought his 88-piece band to Beaumont. Plumly persuaded Sousa to come to the refinery and conduct the Magnolia Band at their noontime break. The Beaumont Enterprise described the scene: "It was a crowd of workingmen that faced Sousa. Dr. Cloud picking up a clarinet and 'sitting in' was the only man in a white collar. The rest, pipe line men, mechanics, boiler makers, still men and others, were grease besmirched and picturesque, probably the most unique aggregation of first-water musicians that Sousa has ever directed."
Sousa, according to the paper, was "plainly surprised" at the level of musicianship, remarking that "these men know what they are doing." At the scheduled concert with his own band, Sousa added to his program "Magnolia Blossoms," a march written by Dr. Harry Cloud, and "San Jacinto March," by Joseph Ricci, Beaumont City band conductor.
Sousa and his band left, but the best was yet to come for Beaumont. On October 1, 1924, with the announcement, "This is Station KFDM-the Magnolia Petroleum Company, Beaumont, Texas-radiocasting its first concert," KFDM Radio went on the air. The call letters, by the way, stood for "Kall For Dependable Magnolene," Magnolene being a Magnolia Refinery product.
Beaumont Enterprise, January 3, 21, 23, October 2, 1924.
John H. Walker and Gwendolyn Wingate, Beaumont: A Pictorial History (Virginia Beach, Donning Publishing Co., 1983).
The Magnolia Band poses in front of the Magnolia Refinery office in the late 1920s.