This is "A History of the First Car Phone in North Omaha" by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com.
20th century, business, Culture, events, Industry, Media, North 16th Street, Youth

A History of the First Car Phone in North Omaha

For a long time, North Omaha was a hotbed of technological experimentation and innovation. After WWI ended in 1919, amateur inventors across the community were messing around in garages, basements, and school workshops. Sometimes people made stuff up though. In late 1920, a pair of 20-year-old North Omahans made headlines across the country. This is a history of their fake innovation, the 1920 “wireless car phone” in North O.

Some Guys from North 16th Street

This image is from an October 1920 edition of the Omaha World-Herald.
This image is from an October 1920 edition of the Omaha World-Herald. It shows Cramer and Swain with an antenna on the front of a car.

More than 125 years ago, the Omaha Daily Bee and the Omaha World-Herald reported on what seemed like a revolutionary breakthrough. It was Tuesday, October 26, 1920, the World-Herald ran a headline that said, “Omahans Invent Wireless Phone For Auto Cars. Youths Complete Apparatus Which Proves Successful After Several Years of Experiment.”

Wilbur R. Cramer and Fred W. Swain (1899-1964), two 20-year-old alumni of Commerce High School, shared what they said was a mobile wireless apparatus. Swain lived at 2916 North 16th Street, and Cramer lived at 4103 North 24th Street.

In the beginning, local reports said these guys spent four years experimenting with radio and telegram technology. Mounting a huge, ship-like antenna to the front of a car, they drove these beast with vertical lead wires across a crossbar around Omaha, claiming that while driving around North O they could talk with friends in New York City and San Francisco on the telephone.

Press in Omaha ate it up, and there were cover articles in the Omaha Bee and the Omaha World-Herald. Cramer was given credit for perfecting a wireless recording dial used by the Navy during WWI. Supposedly, his invention was even installed on the famous NC-4 flying boat.

Within a month, the pair formed a radio company called C&S Radio Electric Company and supposedly patented several devices. They also said they were getting ready to sell their car phone. Teasing the media, they said they would be pipe live orchestra music from one theater in downtown Omaha to another, and that they would be broadcast speeches from Chicago suffragists right into Omaha’s auditoriums. They also said they could remotely operating automobiles with wireless signals.

Within a few weeks of the news, big pictures of Swain, Cramer and their rigged-up car were on the front pages of local papers and shared in national publications like The Literary Digest. For a few months, North O was home to the city’s brightest young prodigies.

Stunting at the Hotel Fontenelle

In an era known for stunts, this September 1920 pic shows a daredevil climbing up the side of Hotel Fontenelle. Within a year, Cramer and Swain would avail to the Strand Theater, shown across the street, to play wireless music in their lobby. It was broadcast using a discrete wire running from the hotel.
In an era known for stunts, this September 1920 pic shows a daredevil climbing up the side of Hotel Fontenelle.

The great public demonstration by Cramer and Swain of their tech happened on March 16, 1921. Pretending they would share music from a live concert at the Omaha Auditorium was supposedly transmitted through the airwaves directly to the lobby of the elegant Hotel Fontenelle.

This is how Omaha Auditorium looked in 1920. That year, Cramer and Swain would avail to the Auditorium to let them use their supposed wireless phone to broadcast an orchestra play from there to the to play music from the auditorium to the lobby of Hotel Fontenelle. It was actually broadcast using a discrete wire running from the hotel.
This is how Omaha Auditorium looked in 1920. That year, Cramer and Swain would avail to the Auditorium to let them use their supposed wireless phone to broadcast an orchestra play from there to the to play music from the auditorium to the lobby of Hotel Fontenelle. It was actually broadcast using a discrete wire running from the hotel.

Inside the Fontenelle lobby, a motor car equipped with Cramer and Swain’s car stood surrounded by an audience of local special guests. They actually thought the invisible power of wireless technology was filling the room with melody.

To the casual observer, it was the dawn of a new era. But to local radio operators who actually understood the immense technical challenges of transmitting clear mobile audio across Omaha in 1921, something didn’t quite add up.

A Rooftop Wire

This October 18, 1921, headline was on the front cover of the Omaha World-Herald and exposed the ruse.
This October 18, 1921, headline was on the front cover of the Omaha World-Herald and exposed the ruse.

A couple of local wireless fans named E. M. Reude and Kenneth Ross were skeptical the whole time. Teaming up with reporters from the Omaha World-Herald, they investigated the demonstration.

Instead of just relying on so-called magic, the investigators climbed up above the downtown streets and discovered, stretching high over the alleys and dangling from rooftops from the Auditorium to Hotel Fontenelle, a mysterious wire. Reude and Ross tapped into the rooftop wire and quickly heard that the “wireless” concert wasn’t riding through the ether at all. Instead, it was sent directly through the hidden physical wire right into the lobby of the hotel.

On October 18, 1921, the World-Herald ran a front-page article with the headline “Exposed ‘Wireless’ Fake.”

As the investigators said when the scheme was laid bare, “The thing could have been done by wireless. But it isn’t being done.” A little more research shows that while the first wireless telephone was used in 1900, the first actual car phone wasn’t used until 1946.

The Legacy?

The story of Cramer and Swain’s “wireless car phone” shows how wild the early 1920s were in Omaha and beyond. Every day, technology was moving ahead so fast that the public was ready to believe almost any mechanical wonder was possible—even mobile phone calls from a Model T cruising down North 16th Street in North Omaha.

Back then, there weren’t laws about fraud that snagged them, and no charges were ever laid in the situation. In 1926, Wilbur R. Cramer got a membership to the Omaha Chamber of Commerce after he began managing the Moon Theater downtown. However, later in the year a business he co-founded called the Omaha Conservatory of Music closed down, and he vanished from Omaha. His accomplice, Fred W. Swain, went on to become a successful telephone company executive in Des Moines.

While their rooftop shortcut turned a historic demonstration into an infamous local hoax, Cramer and Swain captured a memorable footnote in Omaha history. They grabbed the imagination of the city at the very beginning of commercial radio, and today they can remind us of the time when ambitious North Omaha youths dared to dream of the connected world we live in today.

Legit inventions from North Omaha include a flying machine in the 1880s, a board game in the 1890s, and a car in the 1910s.

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Crimes: 1891 George Smith Lynching | 1909 Unsolved Murder | 1910 Jack Johnson Riot | 1917 Larkin McCloud Case | 1919 James Smith Death | 1919 Will Brown Lynching | 1969 Vivian Strong Killing | 1960s North Omaha Riots |
Events: Bombings | Mob Violence
Criminals: Early 20th Century Crime Bosses | Vic Walker | Ollie William Jackson | Axe Murderer Jake Bird | Jack Broomfield
Related: Black Police in Omaha | Police Brutality | Antisemitism | Racism
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