site in the mountainous area from which the station could provide regional coverage; others derided what they felt as the commercialization of the well-known summit. A United States Forest Service hearing in February 1954 drew 50 attendees and thousands of letters, telegrams, and postcards, but the federal government approved the Pisgah tower site at the end of February. Meanwhile, the station acquired the Battle House, a 1925-built residence on Macon Avenue described by The Asheville Citizen as "long considered one of Asheville's finest ... [with] a reputation as a residential showplace", to use as its studios. By July, work was under way on the Mount Pisgah transmitter facility, and a September 18 start date goal had been set; WLOS-TV had signed for affiliation with ABC and the DuMont Television Network. WLOS-TV, as projected, began broadcasting on September 18, 1954. This gave Asheville its second station, as WISE-TV had begun broadcasting on channel 62 in August 1953. Local programming was immediately planned, including shows for housewives, children, and teenagers; the WLOS radio stations also occupied the Battle House. The Mount Pisgah transmitter site gave the station a wide coverage area; pre-launch advertising boasted of having the highest antenna in the South and a signal that reached Johnson City, Tennessee. Wometco ownership A squabble over options to purchase stock in Skyway Broadcasting Company erupted in April 1957, when Harold H. Thoms—owner of WISE radio and television—and Walter Tison of Tampa, Florida, announced they had an option to buy shares in the firm and were going to exercise it. Skyway denied that any such option existed, claiming that it was based on an option extended to a minority stockholder—J. E. Edmonds—and later withdrawn. The matter was taken to court, where Edmonds attacked the validity of the 1953 Citizen-Times option, which remained outstanding. Then, that option catapulted into the spotlight when Miami businessman Mitchell Wolfson—a summer resident of Asheville—announced that he had acquired the Citizen-Times option through his other broadcast property, WTVJ in Miami, and that he was offering a buyout of all other shareholders in Skyway. The so-called "Britt option" that Thoms and Tison claimed to hold became the subject of multiple court cases as Thoms and Tison sued Britt and others for breach of contract. On March 1, 1958, Wolfson's company, Wometco Enterprises, announced it had reached a deal to buy Britt's stock in Skyway Broadcasting and thus assume majority ownership of