WMHG was first licensed in 1949 as WKNK (which stood for the original owner of the station, Nick Kurtis) in Muskegon, with 1,000 watts daytime-only on 1600 kHz.
The call letters were changed to WTRU on April 13, 1957, airing a Top 40 music format that would become legendary in the history of West Michigan radio and dominated the Muskegon market through the mid-1970s.
During the station's later years, one of the DJs, Larry Allen, hosted an FM-like program called "Spectrum" on late Saturday nights.
The "Stardust" format was renamed to "Timeless Favorites" in 2007, by which time the music rotation had moved away from traditional adult standards to soft Top 40 oldies chiefly of the 1960s and 1970s.
Later in 2000, Goodrich filed a request for a nunc pro tunc waiver to retroactively excuse its breach of the common ownership rule and allow Goodrich to continue owning and operating the 1680 AM expanded band station separately from its standard band companion, while Cumulus applied for approval to assign WMHG to Clear Channel Communications, Inc.