WFIU’s first home befit its time of origin: it was a wooden Army surplus barracks, sitting in a field on 7th Street on the IU campus in Bloomington. The grey shingled structure came to be known as the “Quonset hut,” or simply “the Hut.”

From a sweltering 36-square-foot studio, hosts signed on for two hours in the morning, then for five more in the evening, delivering news, music, theater, and “The School of the Sky” to almost anyone in Indiana who could pick up this new kind of broadcast transmission called FM.

The year was 1950. The phrase “public radio” did not exist – the founding of NPR was still two decades away. But the aim then was essentially the same: to extend the mission of Indiana University by democratizing information and culture. Here in 2025, sitting in a slightly larger, more comfortable space near the northwest corner of 7th and Eagleson, we are celebrating 75 years of WFIU connecting Indiana with the world.

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