Springfield TV pioneer Putnam dies

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - William Lowell Putnam, who founded the Springfield area's first television station and the first licensed UHF television station in the United States, has died.

WWLP-TV said in a statement that Putnam died Sunday. He was 90.

Putnam was also a decorated World War II veteran, a Harvard University graduate, an accomplished mountain climber, and for 26 years, the sole trustee of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, founded by his great-uncle, Percival Lowell.

As a member of the 10th Mountain Division, Putnam served in the Aleutians and Italy during World War II, rising to the rank of first lieutenant and earning two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.

After earning a geology degree from Harvard, he founded WWLP in 1953. He sold the station in the 1980s.