In the mid-1950s, a microwave relay site was established by AT&T Long Lines near Holden, Missouri, to support its Dover-La Cygne, Kansas, telephone-only route.
In 1963, a new semi-hardened concrete base station and 100-foot tower were erected east of where the original site once stood. This new site not only handled the telephone traffic for the Dover-La Cygne route, but also added two new hops along the telephone/television Kansas City-Halifax-Oakdale, Illinois, route. As with all other sites along the Kansas City-Oakdale route, the new structure was of a semi-hardened design to protect against a nuclear blast.
The site remained in operation until the 1990s, when AT&T turned down much of its terrestrial Long Lines microwave network in favor of newer technologies like fiber optics. Holden was included in a 1999 sale of AT&T’s former Long Lines sites to American Tower Corporation. According to Rick Ebbesen, treasurer of the Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club — the site’s present owner — the site would eventually be owned by Steven Semon, owner of “Sedalia Smiles” and Central Communications Service Company in Sedalia, Missouri.
Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club (WAARC) acquired the site in the mid-2000s, Ebbesen said. The building was completely empty, as the old equipment had been long removed. Thieves also stole almost every piece of copper in the building, along with anything left of value. Ebbesen recalled the thieves received their comeuppance on one instance:
“Several years before we purchased the site in Holden, Missouri, a few guys broke into the site and tried to steal all the copper out of the building. I remember them taken to the hospital with a very high body temperature around 105 degrees (Fahrenheit). The horns were still on the tower and the waveguides were still going into the building but not connected to any equipment. They were receiving stray RF and basically microwaved them. I know one of them died, not sure about the others. Shortly after that the horns and cables were removed from the tower.”
-Rick Ebbesen
Today, the concrete building houses WAARC’s repeater equipment. The club partitioned rooms inside that also house radios and, eventually, a meeting space for club meetings and training sessions. The building is also used for storage, with many old radios and accessories that would keep a ham/radio enthusiast intrigued for days.
A 50-foot extension was added to the 100-foot tower before WAARC’s ownership, which now contains dipole arrays for amateur radio use. Lower on the tower are more amateur radio/HF antennas, a parabolic dish for a mesh network used by WAARC and Johnson County Emergency Management, and additional parabolic antennas used by the two wireless internet service providers (WISPs) renting tower space for the wireless access points.
Straight-line winds from a June 26, 2018, storm blasted a neighboring building to pieces — and blew those pieces right into the western side of the site. While the building didn’t sustain any damage, it did bend multiple parts on the tower’s southwestern corner.
Photos: November 23, 2024
Former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay tower site seen Nov. 23, 2024, off Route 58. The site is currently used by the Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club.Western wall of the concrete semi-hardened base station seen Nov. 23, 2024, at the former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site.Inside the “blast shield,” revealing the brackets for the missing dummy load heaters and the covered generator air intake. Like nearly everything else from the AT&T era, the original General Motors diesel backup generator that would have been installed at the site is long gone.Southern wall of the building, including an outbuilding for a photovoltaic battery charging system to keep the site online in case of a power outage.The 100-foot tower seen Nov. 23, 2024, at the former AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site near Holden, Missouri. A previous owner installed an approximately 50-foot extension on top of the tower containing dipole arrays. The site is now used by the Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club for its repeaters. The tower also hosts wireless internet service provider (WISP) access points for two different WISPs, along with a mesh network used by WAARC and Johnson County Emergency Management.Damaged braces on the southwestern corner of the tower from debris in the June 26, 2018, storm. Even though it even slightly shifted the southwestern leg, the tower — designed to withstand a nearby nuclear blast — is still structurally sound.The former radio room inside the semi-hardened structure is now primarily used for storage. A lot of really neat radio equipment and accessories found throughout.WAARC partitioned three separate rooms inside the base station. All three are conditioned. One houses the repeater equipment for WØAU, another has radios for members to use, and a third — currently under construction — will be a space for meetings and training classes.Several radios located inside a finished radio room seen Nov. 23, 2024, inside Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club’s former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines semi-hardened concrete base station.Thermostats seen Nov. 23, 2024, inside the former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site, now owned by the Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club. The thermostats are one of very few items remaining from when AT&T owned the site. Before WAARC purchased the site, thieves ravaged the site — stealing nearly every piece of copper and anything of value inside the building.Climate control system diagrams found Nov. 23, 2024, inside the semi-hardened base station at the former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site.Climate control diagram details seen Nov. 23, 2024, inside the concrete semi-hardened base station at the former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site. The drawing was issued June 14, 1972.Electrical service distribution diagram found Nov. 23, 2024, inside the concrete semi-hardened base station at the former AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site near Holden, Missouri.Another HVAC controls diagram seen Nov. 23, 2024, inside the semi-hardened base station at the former AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site near Holden, Missouri.Another item left behind from the AT&T days at the former Holden, Missouri, AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site: An eyewash bottle marked AT&T.Yours truly standing in front of the Warrensburg Area Amateur Radio Club sign Nov. 23, 2024, at the former AT&T Long Lines microwave relay site near Holden, Missouri. The site is currently used by WAARC for its repeaters. (Rick Ebbesen, WAARC treasurer, took this photo.)
Photos: February 25, 2018
A good picture of the sun angle causing the tower to appear as a ‘silhouette.’
On the left side of the building is a “blast shield”, which would protect the outdoor air vent behind it from being damaged by flying debris or fallout in case of a nuclear detonation. Unlike the Slater and Prairie Home base buildings, this building has no windows.
A zoomed, better picture of the “shield”
A picture of the tower itself.
A picture showing the horn platforms on the tower. There would have originally been four horns per platform, one on each corner of the bottom platform, and four on each side of the top. Note the mast that was built on top of the top-most platform.
