Don Pierson's other business ventures included a department store, a bowling facility, cable television, restaurants, oil investments, home banking, a slot car raceway, and farming and ranching operations.
The Eastland anti-smoking ordinance proved prophetic, although, at the time, it generated a deluge of hate mail from the outraged citizens of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Pierson compared this with the number of stations then serving the population of his native Northwest Texas and realized that a UK radio operation could generate a lot of money.
The result was Radio London, which started transmitting on December 16, 1964, from the MV Galaxy, a former World War II United States Navy US Minesweeper.
This law made it a criminal offence for any person to supply music, commentary, advertising, fuel, food, water or any other assistance (except for life-saving purposes) to any ship, offshore structure or aircraft used for broadcasting without a licence.
Although this plan failed to develop, a small syndicated programming network was formed using that name over XERF, KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas and KVMX.
Don Pierson's original plan was to lease or sell the ship to the government of Haiti for it to establish two powerful 50 kW commercial radio stations aimed at American tourists visiting the old buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga island, which is located some 10 miles off the north coast of the main Haitian island of Hispaniola which is also shared by the Dominican Republic.
This offer became a plan to develop the island itself as a freeport and he was asked to assist the government of Haiti to encourage business investment in that poverty-stricken land.
Within 18 months Don Pierson succeeded in building the island's first airport, a loading dock for seagoing vessels, a rudimentary water and sewer system, an electricity generating facility, and six miles of paved road.