Long Lines Site: Windsor, MO

The Long Lines site near Windsor, Missouri was part of the AT&T (Bell System) Long Lines microwave relay network between the 1960s and 1980s. This site was used to relay telephone calls, television broadcasts and other signals before the microwave network was replaced in favor of fiber optic networks.

The Windsor site does not appear in the 1960 network map, but does appear in the 1966 map – meaning the site was built sometime in the early-mid 1960s. The site is on the Kansas City-Halifax route in Missouri. The Windsor site has hops to the northwest to the Holden site, and to the southeast to the Cole Camp site.

Much like the Holden site, the Windsor site features a hardened building that were designed to withstand somewhat close nuclear weapon detonations. This hardened design featured a concrete building with a “blast shield” to protect ventilation systems from nuclear fallout. One potential explanation for this site – and the Holden site – being hardened is the Windsor site’s proximity to the Whiteman Air Force Base, a major Air Force base that formerly housed controls for Minuteman ICBMs.

While Google Maps Street View footage from May 2009 shows the Windsor site still having the KS-15676 horn-reflector antennas still installed, they have (unfortunately) since been removed.

As with the Aullville site in Lafayette County, this site was formerly owned by the McCullough Comsites Corporation, which have since sold the sites to the Missouri Highway Patrol for housing their communication systems. The site currently has the ASR #1005508, which shows the site being first registered in August 1964. While McCullough had this site located on their Missouri sites page, the link to the detailed page on this site is broken.

This site is located approximately five miles north of Windsor on Route WW, or approximately ten miles southeast of Whiteman Air Force Base. The site is located at the extreme southeastern corner of Johnson County, Missouri.