The Long Lines site near Prairie Home, MO was part of the AT&T (Bell) Long Lines network between the 1950s and 1980s. The Prairie Home site relayed telephone and television signals during the time.
The tower is situated approximately three miles southwest of the small town of Prairie Home on Route J. Prairie Home is located in southern Cooper County, half-way between Saint Louis and Kansas City.
Due to the tower’s size, it can be seen from miles. It also has an indicator beacon light on the top in order to alert aircraft of its existence.
Due to it’s location (half-way between two major cities), the tower would’ve endured high traffic during its operation, especially since most cross-country telephone calls or television programs would have went through this tower.
The tower has a wide variety of horn antennas still installed from its Long Lines days, including multiple KS-15676 and Gabriel horns.
Prairie Home was connected to Slater to the northwest and to Holts Summit to the southeast. Television signals were sent to the Columbia station to the northeast.
The station appears to be non-functional. According to the FCC’s ASR database, the tower is currently owned by the Cooper County government. The AT&T sign near the front entrance to the base station has been painted over, and no other signs have been placed on the property. The station was likely abandoned by AT&T in the late 1980s or early 1990s as they replaced the microwave relay technology with fiber optics. While the station appears to be non-functional, it appears that a new air conditioning system was recently installed.
Additional smaller buildings are located near the base of the tower, behind the main concrete block building constructed back in the mid-1950s by the Bell System. The site is likely used for two-way radio communications by the county government, with the smaller buildings housing two-way radio/RF repeater equipment. There are multiple dipole array antennas located on the tower.
The purpose of the main building is still unknown, but it appears a new packaged air conditioning system (with exposed ductwork) was installed long after AT&T Long Lines sites were “turned down.”
White parabolic antennas, like those found at Slater and Dayton, were also found on the tower. The dishes at Dayton were confirmed to be used for wireless broadband internet service for subscribers in the area.
Update: Nov. 11, 2022
Three hops are shown for the Prairie Home site in the Maprad.io database: one south to Barnett, one southeast to Holts Summit (an original link), and another northeast to Columbia. It appears all three hops use the newer-style Gabriel “cornucopia” horns (it appears the original KS-15676 horns on the Holts Summit tower for the Prairie Home hop were replaced later and painted to conform to FAA obstruction requirements) and operate in the 6 GHz range.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Maprad.io results is how recent the licenses are. The license for the hop to Barnett (WLK708) was effective Nov. 29, 2001 and canceled before the expected expiration of Feb. 1, 2010. The license for the hop to Holts Summit (WHT287) was effective June 11, 2004, and canceled before the expected expiration of Feb. 1, 2010. The license for the hop to Columbia (KPP57) was effective Oct. 21, 2014, and canceled before the expected expiration of Feb. 1, 2020, making it the last hop for the site online. (FCC records indicate the Cooper County government owned the Prairie Home site in that time span, so perhaps it was being leased to AT&T to keep the hop alive? At that time, in Oct. 2014, none of the other hops were still online, according to Maprad.io.)
There are no other hops shown for the site on Maprad.io.
Update: April 29, 2023
I have found one of Cooper County’s uses for the site randomly while doing some research for work.
The Cooper County Emergency Management Agency lists a weather station setup at “the old AT&T Tower on Route J,” named “Alpha 1 on their website. (You can view live conditions here.)
In addition to weather data, I strongly believe the site is also home to a two-way radio repeater system, which is typically operated by a county’s emergency management agency. Numerous dipole arrays found on the upper section of the tower substantiate this theory. However, Maprad.io shows no other results at the site. (Madrad.io isn’t 100 percent accurate, however, as I’ve heard of many other active sites being omitted from their database.)
Update: June 2, 2024
While out for a motorcycle ride, I noticed the Prairie Home AT&T Long Lines tower looked off. Unfortunately, the iconic KS-15676 and “cornucopia” horn-reflector antennas were recently removed and set aside the base of the tower, forming an “antenna graveyard.” However, this was the perfect opportunity to look at the massive antennas up close. The size of the antennas is always stunning.
The outhouse and some other out buildings were also moved around, and other parts of the tower — such as ice/hail guards — were also removed.
Update: June 24, 2024
Thanks to perfect timing, my uncle and luck, I was able to salvage a couple of the antenna data tags off the large KS-15676 horn antennas removed from the Prairie Home site.
This past weekend, I met with the emergency management director for Cooper County at an event. We discussed the Long Lines site and the future of the 13 antennas found on the ground around the site, along with the site itself.
As expected, he confirmed Cooper County Emergency Management Agency uses the tower as a repeater site for local EMS, fire and law enforcement. The antennas were removed for network upgrades.
The director said he, along with crews who helped remove copper and equipment left behind by AT&T, was intrigued by the equipment inside the base station. He added each antenna weighed around 3,500 pounds (1,588 kg) and was 21-feet tall.
With the antennas no longer serving a purpose, a local excavating company will “crush” the aluminum antennas down to be hauled off by a recycling company. From there it could become a soda can, aircraft parts or a computer.
Removing the tags was not as easy as planned. I tried drilling out the four rivets holding each tag onto the antenna, but gave up after about 15 minutes of no success. I later returned with my uncle, an angle grinder, hammer and chisel to remove tags from three of the five KS-15676 antennas.
While removing the tags, I was approached by residents of the neighboring home. They recalled the site being active back when AT&T owned it.
Of the tags removed, two were from horns made by Goodyear Aircraft of Akron, Ohio, and one was from an antenna made by Rohr Corporation of Chula Vista, California. Four of the five KS-15676 antennas removed from the tower were made by Goodyear.
Prairie Home had five KS-15676 horn-reflector antennas, seven “cornucopia”/Gabriel horn-reflector antennas, and a single shrouded parabolic drum that was aimed toward Slater.
Photos: August 2022
The following photos were taken August 8, 2022, using my Nikon D5600 camera and the iPhone SE (2nd generation). I was able to get a variety of closer shots, including some zoomed-in close-up shots of the top.
Photos: May 2018
Pictures below taken May 30, 2018 using a Samsung Galaxy Express Prime 2.
History – “AT&T Focus”
Tim Souder, an ex-Long Lines employee, posted these pictures of an article featured in the October 25, 1988 issue of Focus, an internal publication for AT&T employees, on a Long Lines Facebook group. Souder was featured on the cover and did some work at the Prairie Home site when it was in operation.
Special thanks to Tim Souder for sharing and granting permission to publish here.
Among other local technicians responding to this particular post, Tim wrote the following in response to my modern photographs:
Hunters shot the damn things [fiberglass face on the KS-15676 horns] all the time causing 0 air pressure of the waveguide. We would have to either swing around from side or bail off from the top and hang out there and patch to get pressure back up. The newer Gabriel horns had a Teflon face and was pushed out… I’m sure they thought if they shot it would pop… they don’t. Just created work for us.
In “AT&T Long Lines – A Forgotten System,” I discuss my personal connection with the Slater, MO tower which this tower is linked to towards the northwest. I also discuss the history of the Long Lines network – specifically the microwave relay network – and its importance on telecommunications.