THE FIRST LITTLE TELEVISION SET

And The Community That Had No Television Station But Could Watch Television

“Ed” Parsons, as he liked to be called in Alaska, was known as the Great White Father of Communication for very good reasons: He created what one day would be the largest industrial giants of our time. He was the Father of the first documented paying cable television industry as we know it today. He was a Father figure to many of the Eskimos of northern Alaska. He often came and went to Washington D.C. to conduct business as he brought northern Alaska’s communication into the 20th century. He was an original Alaskan pioneer and, from the time he was 29 years old, he was 6’4” tall with bushy white eyebrows and the whitest hair anyone ever saw. In an informal land of mukluks and parkas he always wore a white shirt and a tie. But this story is about that little television set in Oregon he brought to Astoria and how it change almost everyone’s view of television.