You may go your entire life wondering about something you see every day, but don't know where to find out more. That's where our feature OKI Wanna Know comes in. This week, we look into a west side landmark, with WVXU's Bill Rinehart.
A 10-story tower stands near the intersection of Cheviot and Jessup roads, and Susan LaFary of White Oak has some questions.
"It is a very tall structure that is concrete, and I was wanting to know what it really is," she says. "We were always told it was a television tower, but the question is why does it have walls that are three-feet thick, and it appears like it is built differently than any other relay tower that I've ever seen."
To get the answer on this White Oak monolith, we go to West Chester, and the Voice of America Museum, where Executive Director Jack Dominic says the tower represented a leap forward in technology.
"It's part of what is called the AT&T Long Lines system. What that was was a tower in which were affixed microwave dishes," he says. "They received and transmitted various types of communication: long distance telephone, radio networks, television networks, and data."
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Dominic says microwave replaced hard wires; actual wires that were cumbersome, unsightly and expensive.
"If a network television signal was coming into Cincinnati, it would come via AT&T Long Lines, but before the microwave system, it literally came in on very large coaxial cables."
Dominic says in the 1960s, via wires, a transmission would cost a dollar an hour per mile. He says AT&T switched to microwaves with a network of towers across the country. There were hundreds of them, including the one in White Oak.
"That would relay signals from Dayton, Indianapolis area; Shandon, Ohio area, and then down to, at one time, the top of Carew Tower. And then after the Cincinnati Bell building, Cyrus. That's where that tower in White Oak was sending the signals."
The government was interested in switching, because microwaves were harder to interrupt.
"Back then, remember, we were always looking... duck under your desk, go to the fallout shelter, and all those type of things. They felt the microwave system would be able to survive nuclear bombs."
The tower was built around 1949, as the Cold War was heating up.
"If you take a look at that tower — and there are others around the area as well — but that's the only concrete structure nearby," Dominic says. "And it was essentially made to withstand a nuclear blast."
As Dominic says, there are microwave towers all over the place. But locally, the White Oak tower is the only one hardened against the bomb. Which begs the question: Why?
It's because southwest Ohio could be considered a target-rich environment for the Soviets: There was the Fernald Enrichment Plant, GE, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and more than a few Nike anti-aircraft missile silos.
"I think they figured that because this was in the metropolitan area and if we ever got bombed, this is where we would be bombed," Dominic says. "Most of the others are out in the middle of cornfields, and probably wouldn't have been major targets, so structural steel might just be fine."
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Today, Dominic says microwave systems are still used, but not nearly as much as they used to be.
"At one time that was the backbone of the U.S. communications network," he says. "Remember, satellites really didn't get moving until the late '70s, so from the beginning of the Cold War through that time, communications were either wires or microwaves, and that was it. And the microwave was so superior."
The tower has cellphone equipment on top of it today. It appears to be owned by Altafiber, (formerly Cincinnati Bell), and used only for cell phone service antenna.
This story has been updated to include the owner of the tower, and to clarify the type of missile bases around the area. Thanks to Will Staffan and Brad Beckett for their information.
The Voice of America Museum is a financial supporter of Cincinnati Public Radio.
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