Missing in Alabama: A Radio Tower, and 'The Sound of Walker County' [View all]

Missing in Alabama: A Radio Tower, and ‘The Sound of Walker County’

On Feb. 2, Brett Elmore was informed that his radio station’s 190-foot-tall tower had vanished. Now he wants answers, and hopes his station can hang on.



“Who in the world steals a radio tower?” said Brett Elmore, the WJLX station manager, recalling his bewildered reaction. Wes Frazer for The New York Times

By Eduardo Medina
Reporting from Jasper, Ala.
Feb. 16, 2024

The radio tower peeking out over dense woods and poultry farms had an AM signal just strong enough to serve WJLX’s intended audience: the people in and around Jasper, Ala., who wanted to hear the Jasper Vikings’ Friday night high school football broadcasts and news of the burger specials at Alabama Stackers on 19th Street.

Then, “The Sound of Walker County,” as the station has long billed itself, went silent. … The tower, all 190 feet of it, had vanished — its 3,500 pounds of spindly steel beams possibly sliced into pieces and dragged away earlier this month by thieves, the police said.

“Who in the world steals a radio tower?” said Brett Elmore, the station manager, recalling his bewildered reaction when a maintenance worker explained to him why the station he often calls “my life” had been knocked off the air.

The disappearance has made for one of the more puzzling cases taken on by the Jasper Police Department, which has had few leads so far.

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The radio tower, in better days. Brett Elmore

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A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 17, 2024, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Alabama, a Case of Grand Theft Audio. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe