Original Call Letters were WAMV, it signed on the air in the early 60s and went dark until 1966, when the station was acquired by the Catholic Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who broadcasted the station from studios and a transmitter site at the Our Lady of the Snows Shrine near Belleville, IL. The station, however never broadcasted a religious format, rather, they were a non-commercial station that played popular music interspersed with positive motivational messages, many recorded by members of other faiths besides Catholic. The late Leo Cheers, "The Man In the Red Vest" hosted a jazz program in the evenings on 101.1 for many years.
In the Mid 1980s, WMRY became a commercial station, and aired a fairly progressive rock format, which would last until 1991 - studios by then were moved out of the shrine and into an office park in St Louis County. In 1991, the format was changed to Soft AC, and the call letters were changed to WSNL "Sunny 101," then the station was sold to Barry Baaker's River City Broadcasting, who at that time also owned 105.7 FM, and Channel 30. Later that year the station was switched to a format called "Mellow Rock," as WFXB "The Fox" which consisted of a lot of singers and songwriters type stuff like Dan Fogelberg and Neil Young, which simulcast on 105.7 FM KFXB. A year or so later, 105.7 was dropped from the simulcast, and 101.1 forged on as the Fox a couple more years, eventually evolving into an ARRO type Classic Hits format.
That gave way in 1994 for Modern AC "The River", which survived through a sale of the station to Sinclair Broadcasting in 1997. Sinclair sold 101.1 to Bonneville in 2000, and the format remained until 2006, when the station became WMVN "Movin' 101.1"
During the 101.1 frequency's brief tenure as "Movin'", the station upgraded from 50,000 Watts to 100,000 Watts from the same tower as sister station WIL, which involved relocating a few different radio stations in areas surrounding St. Louis to different frequencies and different cities. Shortly after the upgrade was completed, the station went to its current WXOS "101 ESPN" format 1/1/2009, after a few months of playing Christmas music.
