Trips from Muncie to Fort Wayne were common when I was a kid, and I always looked forward to seeing a pair of unique steel towers with shell-shaped antennae. I stumbled across several more over the years as I grew up. Once I found out what they were, I hopped down a deep into the AT&T Long Line rabbit hole. I’ve been posting about them every Sunday since November, but I’ve got to press pause for a few weeks. I ran out of photos!
Before the ubiquity of cell phones, AT&T’s Long Lines network was critical in enabling long-distance communication. More than forty years have passed since the program was discontinued, but old Long Line relics tower over their surroundings across Indiana. Back then, calling someone from afar meant passing a baton of microwave signals though a series of line-of-sight towers.
I remember two decommissioned Long Line Towers near Warren and Zanesville on my childhood trips to Fort Wayne. I even recall seeing a handful of concrete examples in northern Indiana when I lived with my Dad during high school. These days, I work within spitting distance of the old Long Line tower in Anderson.
I count 102 old towers and sites in Indiana as of this writing. So far, I’ve written about twenty-three. I’ve been to four more in Burrows, Anoka, and Kokomo, but the trip took me into the beginnings of an unexpected blizzard! My photos suffered from the snow, so I decided to revisit the sites in better weather before I posted. Unfortunately, I haven’t found the time yet.
I’ve finally found time. I’ll have four days off around Memorial Day, and my mom is game to come with me on my trip. We’ll find accommodations somewhere in the northwest part of the state to make a real trip out of it. Aside from the retakes, I should be able to add another twenty-three Long Line towers to my list! Once I do, I’ll start posting about them again.
