and "an elegant wrought-iron chandelier with parchment shades over electric candles". Cable television birthplace The former hotel has been called the "birthplace of cable television". In 1948, the Hotel Astoria was the site of the "world's first cable television system", invented by L. E. "Ed" Parsons, then owner of Astoria radio station KAST. Ed Parsons set up the first U.S. cable television system to use coaxial cable and a community antenna to deliver TV signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast TV signals. The first television station in the Pacific Northwest was inaugurated in November 1948 by Seattle radio station KRSC, now KING-TV. Astoria being about from Seattle, Parsons "was unable to get a picture in his apartment, even with a high antenna". His apartment was located across the street from the eight-story Hotel Astoria, and with permission from the hotel's manager he set up an antenna on the building's roof and ran coaxial cable from there to his apartment. The set-up worked, and Parsons and his wife were the only people in Astoria able to view television, starting on Thanksgiving Day 1948. "Reception was not of a quality that would be saleable today," Parsons told The Oregonian in 1972, "but we received a picture and started attracting guests." The couple quickly became overwhelmed by requests from friends and neighbors eager to pay them a visit to experience the new medium. To appease them, Parsons laid a second cable to a TV set in the hotel's lobby, and by the end of December a nearby music store was the third hook-up. Parsons then began setting up cable television connections to area households, with 25 receiving the service by mid-March 1949 and 100 by July. Some time later, Parsons moved his community antenna from the roof of the Hotel Astoria to a separate location elsewhere in town and also added a second antenna site. See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Clatsop County, Oregon References External links 1924 establishments in Oregon Defunct hotels in Oregon Gothic Revival architecture in Oregon Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Oregon Hotel buildings completed in 1923 Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon National Register of Historic Places in Astoria, Oregon