Television comes to Florence, OR

Television came to Florence, OR, via cable, for people who lived in town, at least by the early 1950s. However, with those of us living outside of town, and we were 3 miles from the city center, antennae could not pick up images, just snow and the sounds of static. "Ghosts kissing in a snow storm," Vake called it.  That changed in 1961, when I was an 8th-grader, when "the translator" was installed.  It was some sort of screen that would pick up television signals coming from Portland, and reflect them from a hillside in Glenada, across the Siuslaw from Florence, back down onto the town. It was paid for by donations from the community.  People who donated $12 or $20 dollars (I don't remember the exact amount of the request) received a sticker to place in their windows, showing that they had donated.  It was like PBS or NPR today, but with no business or  professional organization that I know of, no lobby group, behind it.  Suddenly, however, we picked up ABC, CBS and NBC.  I mention it only because I was talking about it with my friend Kate, who grew up in Eugene, with television. I had taken the system for granted, but she thought it was absolutely amazing that a community could operate that way! And she's an ex-hippie who had aspired to see such things happen. So maybe it's "lore" for the younger generation to be told about.