In 1958, the station first went on the air as WAGE, on 1290 kHz. The station was founded by Richard Field Lewis Jr., who also founded WINC in Winchester and WFVA in Fredericksburg. The original studio and transmitter site was a field behind Loudoun County High School in Leesburg. To this day, the street on which the studio stood is named Wage Drive. An anecdotal story claims that CBS newscaster and Leesburg resident Arthur Godfrey was the original owner, and the call sign stood for Arthur Godfrey Enterprises. In fact, the construction permit was owned by Lewis and passed to his widow upon his death in 1957. The callsign was reassigned from what is now WHEN in Syracuse, New York and was almost certainly sequential as it had no known meaning in either city. Once built, the station was sold first to William T. Stubblefield and again in 1962 to a group headed by James and Valeria Symington. In 1995, WAGE moved to 1200 kHz, allowing the use of a stronger full-time signal. WAGE was sold to WUST owner New World Radio Group, through its subsidiary Potomac Radio, Inc., in 2005. Local programming ended in 2007. On October 29, 2008, WAGE received a permit from the Federal Communications Commission to move to 1190 kHz and increase its power to 50,000 watts. If the move had occurred, it would have caused Annapolis-based WBIS, currently on 1190 kHz, to shut down. While the station covered local news throughout its history, the music format changed over the years, going from classical music, to easy listening music, to country, to light rock and pop. On August 2, 2009, WAGE fell silent due to "tough economic conditions" and an ongoing attempt to move the station to AM 1190 and up the power to 50,000 watts. On April 21, 2010, the FCC approved WAGE's application to increase its daytime power to 50,000 watts and its nighttime power to 1,300 watts from different antenna sites, along with the frequency shift to 1190 kHz. The station was also forced to move out of Leesburg as the existing transmitter site was not large enough to accommodate the required towers. WCRW returned to the air on April 11, 2011, with programming from China Radio International, the Chinese state broadcaster. On November 2, 2015, the FCC announced it would investigate allegations that WCRW is controlled by CRI. Reuters reported that 60 percent of the station's airtime is leased by a subsidiary of CRI. WCRW was granted 1.2 kW of night power in 2017, upgrading from class D to class B in the process. The station received permission to begin test operations at night on May 4, 2018. New World Radio Group sold WCRW to the unrelated Potomac Radio Group, Inc., partially owned by Marquee Broadcasting owners Brian and Patricia Lane, in September 2018.
