Long before television became a staple in every American home, one of the most groundbreaking broadcasts in U.S. history was sent from right here in Montgomery County. On July 2, 1928, Charles Francis Jenkins, a prolific inventor with more than 400 patents, launched W3XK, the nation’s first licensed commercial television station, from Wheaton, Maryland (Library of Congress; National Museum of American History).
Jenkins was no stranger to innovation. In the 1890s, he unveiled his Phantoscope, a motion picture projector that helped usher in the age of cinema (Smithsonian Institution). By June 1925, he was pushing boundaries again, transmitting the silhouette of a toy windmill via radio waves, widely recognized as the first public television demonstration in the United States (Library of Congress).
Just three years later, his Wheaton-based W3XK began airing regular broadcasts from his home at the corner of Windham Ln and Georgia Ave. The station sent crude moving images to a small number of experimental receivers, marking the first step toward modern TV as we know it (American Television History Archives)…