KCOU began in a broom closet in Cramer Hall on Halloween night circa 1965, as a couple of guys wanted to play their music over the radio. Originally, the station was conceived as KCCS 580 AM: an amalgamation of several existing, small dormitory radio stations around the University of Missouri-Columbia's campus. The station was established to serve the students of the residence halls as well as the entire surrounding community of Columbia, MO. It was created under IRHA, known today as the Residence Halls Association. RHA sold KCOU to the Missouri Students Association (MSA) in 1998. MSA provides KCOU with a large portion of its funding, although much of our support also comes from underwriting and benefits. In spite of the fact that MSA owns the station's license, KCOU must remain autonomous in order for the FCC to allow the station to exist. The call letters for the station come from the abbreviation from the Columbia Airport.

In 1972, Jim Green (President of IRHA and former chief engineer of KHMO Brookfield), John Bobel (General Manager), and Marv Wells (Program Director), did all of the legal, financial, and political work to create KCOU. KCOU became the first station in U.S. history to be licensed to a student group within a university, and not to the university administration! Jim Green held the First Class FCC license and so was nominally Technical Director. R. J. Hanson (Chief Engineer the semester that KCOU went on the air) did the installation of the new equipment in the station. Marv Wells, Phil Bourne (former News Director), Tom Lange (General Manager after John Bobel left in May of 1973), and R. J. Hanson worked together to erect the antenna on top of Hudson Hall. The FM was turned on live for the first time on Halloween of 1973 at 88.3 MHz with 10 watts of power, and monaural audio, enough to cover most of the city of Columbia to the north, and south almost to Rock Bridge. Napoleon XIII's "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Hah Hah" was the first tune on the air. In Spring of 1974, Marv Wells and Bob Gallo (new Chief Engineer) designed the present layout of the station with help from Marv's roommate Jim Buesing who was studying architecture. Mike Renth (new general manager), Marv, and Bob oversaw all construction of the new double-sized radio station studio space, and Bob did all of the stereo design and wiring for the present day KCOU, and installed all the new stereo equipment, including the new 250-watt stereo FM transmitter.

During the late 1970's, KCOU served Columbia as a Progressive Rock station, pushing what has now become KSHE and KFMZ's format. Most of the specialty shows of that time stemmed from the era of KCCS. However, towards the end of the decade and into the early 1980's, punk and new wave emerged, changing the sound of music and the station's direction. Since Columbia had no outlet for the new styles of music coming out, KCOU began to attract those interested in the newer music, growing to be one of the foremost college radio stations in the country.

All of the good fortune almost came to an end in 1993 when the station was suddenly put to rest by RHA due to claims of financial mismanagement. RHA fired KCOU's entire staff and brought in a new General Manager. The station's call letters were changed to KEJJ and then was marketed as "The Edge." After a brief period of extreme disappointment due to the new format, the new General Manager was quickly fired. Eventually, many students rallied for support from the community and local businesses. Today, KCOU is firmly back on its feet and is steadily building more and more respect and support from the University community and all of Columbia.