If you were tasked with locating the tallest structure within the skyline of Washington, D.C., you’d be right to point at the Washington Monument. But from 1912 to 1941, just across the Potomac River and into Virginia, there was another manmade structure that was even taller than the beloved stone obelisk and was a treasured sight for residents of Arlington County.
Just off the intersection of Columbia Pike and Courthouse Road, a collection of radio transmission towers dominated Washington’s skyline for more than a quarter of a century. The tallest among them—taller than the Washington Monument (555ft)—stood at 600 feet! It was also once the second tallest radio tower in the world next to the 630 feet tower at the German naval station in the town of Nauen, Brandenburg.
But the towers were more than just a visual sight to behold. Between 1913 and 1936, they set the clocks for the entire nation with their daily time signals. They were also responsible for making the word “radio” an industry standard. But most importantly, Arlington was considered the “most powerful wireless telegraph station in the world,” and its pioneering advancements and experiments in communications technology helped usher in an era of wireless communications across the globe.
The towers were attached to the Arlington Radio Station of the United States Navy, also known by its call letters, “NAA.” The station was constructed as part of a project to build an empire-wide, long-distance wireless radio communications network—at the time called “high-power radio telegraphy.” These powerful radio stations would link America’s fleet at sea while providing fast and reliable communication between the ships and Washington.
The project called for seven radio stations around the globe: San Francisco, Colón (the Atlantic terminal of the Panama Canal), The Hawaiian Islands, Samoa, Guam, The Philippines, And… Arlington, Virginia
The expectation was that with the completion of all seven stations, “the navy and Washington will be accessible to each other from every corner of the world.” Together, the electrical waves of all seven stations were estimated to cover about 198,390,800 square miles of continent and ocean.