KDKA 1020 AM's Saxonburg Transmitter

A special pre-recorded KDKA program from June 1956 at the Saxonburg Museum in Saxonburg, PA.

History was made on the evening of November 2, 1920, when KDKA, the United States’ first commercially licensed radio broadcaster, informed Pennsylvanians that Warren G. Harding had won the election over James M. Cox of Ohio to become the 29th President of the United States. Home to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, Pittsburgh was a prime location for the first commercial radio broadcast. Westinghouse was quick to capitalize on the “Special Amateur” license it had received during WWI, which allowed the company to conduct experiments while other U.S. radio stations were ordered off the air.

Seeing regular radio broadcasts as a way to incentivize the public to purchase Westinghouse radios, company executives sensed an opportunity to bring entertainment to the masses. Westinghouse had already constructed a transmitter atop the K Building at its Pittsburgh factory to conduct radiotelephone operations with other Westinghouse offices. The array was part of a scheme to avoid those pesky Western Union telegraph charges by sending spoken-word transmissions over the airwaves for free. It was also the perfect set of equipment to repurpose for that first broadcast on November 2, 1920.

That first 100-watt transmitter atop the K Building was only the beginning for KDKA. Through the miracle of vacuum tubes and Westinghouse engineering, KDKA would eventually broadcast at a power level north of 300 kilowatts (kW) from nearby Saxonburg, PA. Normal operations hovered between 50 and 80 kW of broadcasting power, but from 1–6 a.m. each night, KDKA joined the likes of Cincinnati’s WLW (which broadcast at a ludicrous 500 kW) in experimenting with high-power transmission. You could probably pick up the KDKA broadcast from your nearest chain-link fence when the Saxonburg transmitter was pumping out its full 400 kW—similar phenomena were often reported by those who lived near such high-power transmitters.

While I’ve been meaning to organize a deeper dive into the history of broadcast radio, this wasn’t a blog post I had planned for 2023. Sometimes a great bit of local history just falls into your lap, which is what happened when I made a stop at the Saxonburg Museum. I planned a pit stop in Saxonburg on my way to Pittsburgh, PA, because the museum maintains John Roebling’s original workshop—an artifact relevant to a project I’m working on about the remnants of Roebling Steel. The museum’s expansive collection spans far beyond John Roebling’s contributions to Saxonburg, and a 1.5-hour stop quickly turned into 3.5 hours. Tours are by appointment only, so call ahead!

Within the museum is a stunning collection of local artifacts, including a section dedicated to the radio station KDKA. The focal point of the KDKA display is the “Dog House,” a small shack whose namesake comes from its 3/4-size door. The original structure stood at the base of KDKA’s Saxonburg transmitter and housed the massive “Spider Coil” pictured above. The coil is built from 83 feet of thick copper tubing, which was used to tune the station’s signal and reject background noise from the broadcast.

Record Player at the Saxonburg Museum

Some evidence of KDKA’s past in Saxonburg is still visible at the factory complex of Coherent Technologies, a modern-day manufacturer of electronics and communication equipment. A concrete pier from the days when a 718-foot-tall broadcasting tower loomed over the site can still be seen on the property, left behind when the tower was relocated. Additionally, the brick transmission building constructed in the 1930s has been absorbed into Coherent’s factory and is still visible from the exterior.

After taking in some of the history behind KDKA on Saturday at the museum, I started my Sunday off by hunting down the site where the Saxonburg transmitter was relocated. A short drive landed me at KDKA’s present-day Allison Park transmission station. The 1939-vintage New England Colonial-style transmission building straddles KDKA Drive and still houses the original 50 kW Westinghouse transmitter that was relocated from Saxonburg. KDKA moved its broadcasting arrays to Allison Park, PA, around 1940 to improve coverage of Downtown Pittsburgh. KDKA’s shortwave transmitter was left behind in Saxonburg, and the land was eventually deeded to Carnegie Mellon University. An atom smasher was later brought to the site in Saxonburg and used by the university to conduct experiments through the 1970s.

Current KDKA transmission building built in 1939 to locate the KDKA transmitter closer to Downtown Pittsburgh.

The Ohio State Reformatory

The Ohio State Reformatory, an infamous prison and filming location of The Shawshank Redemption, is now a tourist destination which allows you to walk the cell blocks and get a glimpse of life behind bars for the thousands of inmates that once called Mansfield, Ohio home. The prison is imposing, designed by the architect Levi T. Scofield (who also designed the Athens Lunatic Asylum) and had an initial capacity for 1,500 inmates. While immortalized in The Shawshank Redemption as a maximum security prison, the Ohio State Reformatory was initially an intermediary facility intended to bridge the gap between the Boys Industrial School and the State Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Only intended to house young, first-time offenders, the inhumane conditions that existed in the prison were enough to cause a federal judge to order its closure in 1983.

Starting in the administration block, the self guided tour route snakes through the various cell blocks and inner workings of the prison. In typical early 1900s institutional design fashion, a degree of ornamentation was included in the design of the trim, banisters, and other woodwork. One eye-catching architectural detail of the prison are the numerous fireproof staircases, which can be found throughout the administrative and cell blocks. These staircases imitate ornate wooden varieties, but are constructed of steel to maintain structural integrity during a fire. This also allowed the exclusion of unsightly fire escapes from the facade.

Despite these fireproof staircases, the prison still suffered a deadly fire on April 21, 1930. 322 inmates were killed when guards refused to open the cell doors of the burning sell block, trapping inmates in their 7x9 foot cells. Some prisoners who escaped were able to wrestle keys from the guards and run back into the prison, saving a number of those inmates who were otherwise left for dead. Built for 1,500 inmates and completed in 1910 (construction was delayed from the start in 1896 by the Bearing financial crisis), the prison held 4,300 at the time of the fire.

Sections of the administration block remain unrestored, but some rooms filmed in The Shawshank Redemption were left as-is by the production crew. There’s still plenty of peeling paint and crumbling plaster to see, but the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society has done a good job of stabilizing the buildings and preventing further degradation. Moving onto the cell blocks, it’s almost impossible to understand just how tiny each cell is without seeing for yourself. Stacked six stories high, sleeping one on top of the other, two adult inmates would share a cell designed for adolescents which included a toilet, small sink, and mirror. Gang-type showers were located just off each cell block.

Like many institutions of the day, the prison functioned like a walled city - food was prepared on-site, a small hospital provided a minimum standard of care, and a library gave inmates the opportunity to learn. Job training programs played an important role in the prison, and the land was farmed to provide fresh food for the kitchens. Most of the outbuildings that supported the prison were leveled when the modern Mansfield Correctional Institution opened as a minimum/medium security prison in 1990. Delays in construction of Richland Correctional pushed the court-ordered closure of the reformatory back from 1983 to 1990.

Cincinnati Union Terminal

Cincinnati Union Terminal is a 1920s-era Art Deco station that sits on the outskirts of downtown Cincinnati. An iconic example of Art Deco design, construction was started in 1929 and completed by 1933. The station was a massive infrastructure project for the city and was funded to the tune of $41 million by the railroads, despite financial setbacks caused by the Great Depression. Because of its proximity to the Ohio River and the low elevation of the adjoining rail yard, the station and tracks were raised up on 5.5 million cubic feet of fill during construction to prevent track washouts. Sporting 94 miles of track with a theoretical capacity of 216 trains per day, this “Temple to Transportation” was busiest during WWII and practically abandoned by the 1970s as air and automotive travel won over the public. Amtrak discontinued service at the station from 1972 until 1991 when a renovation was completed by a coalition of museums who hoped to revitalize the terminal. Based on the crowd that showed up while I was visiting, I’d say their revitalization efforts were successful!

When viewed from above, the most jarring addition to the terminal is the massive stretch of asphalt parking lots that flank Ezzard Charles Drive. This wasn’t always here—as built, the terminal included 20,000 square feet of space which housed an underground parking garage. The parking garage even featured a garage of its own, and travelers could send their cars in for service while they were away on a trip. In order to breathe new life into the terminal in the post-rail era, the garage was converted for exhibition space and the manicured landscape leading to the terminal was paved over in 1980. While I understand the logic behind converting the parking garage to museum space, it’s a pity that the beautiful landscaping had to be destroyed for a parking lot.

The architects behind Cincinnati Union Terminal were clever. As you walk up to the station, you’ll see three staggered wings jutting out from the half-dome. Each was designed to serve a different mode of transportation—one ramp for cars and taxis, one for buses, and a loop for streetcars. Much like the incomplete Cincinnati Subway, the infrastructure was in place but the tracks were never built to connect the station and downtown Cincinnati by streetcar.

The concourse, where passengers would board their train, was demolished in the 1970s at the insistence of the railroads. Double-stacked cargo trains were now too high to fit under the overpass, and this reduced the theoretical capacity of the active rail yard. Much of the 18,150 square feet of murals that adorned the walls and depicted the industries of Cincinnati were located down this concourse. Luckily these 14 murals were saved, though the beautiful “map of the world” mosaic above the information counter at the rear of the concourse proved too impractical and costly to relocate. I’m hoping to track down some of those murals which were saved when I’m back in Cincinnati.

At the height of rail travel during WWII, over 30,000 passengers a day passed through the concourse on their way across the country. The USO set up accommodations for soldiers on their way home or to the front, filling offices with cots for a quick nap and converting the tea room into a snack station serving coffee, doughnuts, and locally donated baked goods. An air-conditioned theater just off the rotunda showed the latest newsreels, and a lunchroom offered a hot meal to travelers. To give you an idea of just how far backwards we’ve gone from the golden age of rail travel, passengers could take advantage of a wide variety of services while waiting for their trains. Rather than scurrying through Penn Station like I used to do every workday, passengers could grab a reasonably priced meal at the lunchroom, take a quick shower to freshen up, get a haircut and a shoe shine, or have light refreshments at the tea room. Now only two Amtrak trains stop in Cincinnati three times a week, and both in the early hours of the morning (1:30 AM inbound and 3:30 AM outbound to NYC on the Cardinal route). Cincinnati Union Terminal was truly the gateway to the city, guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.

The engineering behind the terminal is a marvel within itself. The half-dome is 180 feet wide and uses a double-walled construction method. Steam heat is piped between the roof and ceiling to keep the rotunda at a comfortable temperature. The entire terminal and rail yard had to be raised to avoid flooding. The complex mixture of steel and concrete had taken a beating by 2016 when occupants of the terminal were able to raise enough money to fund a complete renovation, which wrapped in 2018.

Operated as an independent corporation, Cincinnati Union Station contained offices for the station management which were completed in the Art Deco design. Suffering from weather damage and vandalism, these offices were restored to their former glory by volunteers. The secretary and president’s office feature Art Deco built-in desks, and the president’s office in particular is awash in hand-crafted detail. A map of the United States is inlaid over the fireplace (which was used on occasion) and a motif of the terminal is inlaid above the office’s entrance. The offices and board room feature cork floors, a nifty building material choice designed to dampen the noise from the nearby rail yard.

I was hoping to take a tour of Tower A, which gave a bird’s eye view of the tracks surrounding the terminal, but it was unfortunately closed. The Cincinnati Railroad Club restored the space and occupied it until the latest restoration was completed, when they were unceremoniously evicted from the space over stipulations which forced the terminal to charge the volunteer organization rent. Hopefully they reopen it someday and I’ll be able to take that tour.

Among one of the more unique reuses of Cincinnati Union Terminal was the opening of a department store in the rotunda, which survived until 1985. Luckily the Art Deco details of the terminal were left intact! These details remind me a lot of my office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in NYC—the abundance of painted artwork like that on the ceiling of the Cincinnati Room, the chrome door hardware, and the US Mail Boxes in the rotunda walls. The breadth of materials used is impressive—paint for murals, tile and dyed concrete for the 100-foot wide motifs depicting Cincinnati’s history in the rotunda, glazed tiles in the tea room, and hand-cut linoleum as the material of choice to depict the African-themed artwork near the lunchroom.

Gazing out the terminal and imagining how things would’ve looked here in 1941, I realized something—the tallest building on the horizon would’ve still been there to greet me. Built in 1931, the Carew Tower is another Cincinnati Art Deco icon that held the record of “tallest building in Cincinnati” until 2010. The tower features a historic Art Deco hotel, so I think I’ll need to find an excuse to stay in the city for a night on my next visit…

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s summer design campus, began life as a patch of barren desert in Northeast Scottsdale. From 1937 until his death in 1959, Wright and his entourage of apprentices and staff escaped the harsh Wisconsin winters via the Arizona desert. Today, the site is owned and managed by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation which offers audio and guided tours of the facilities. I stopped by on my way through Arizona, having flown into Phoenix before heading south to the Mexican border.

The odd glass elements installed around the property were part of an exhibit entitled “Chihuly in the Desert”, which showcased the work of Dale Chihuly. His glass sculptures were also installed at the Desert Botanical Garden I visited earlier in the day.

Wright’s first foray into the Arizona desert was as a rustic camp, dubbed Ocatilla, which was comprised of multiple wood frame cabins with canvas roofs. This first camp was established when Wright and his draftsmen were working on a handful of projects in the Phoenix area. A camp was a more economical solution than costly hotel rooms for the cash-strapped architect, and the total cost for the compound was about a season’s worth of accommodations at a Phoenix area hotel. Ultimately each cabin came out to around $200 ($3,418 in 2022). Wright abandoned the camp as his Phoenix area commissions evaporated with the stock market crash of 1928, .

Taliesin West started life in 1937 when the search began for a permanent winter home for the Wright Fellowship in the Phoenix area. Apprentices would pay $650 per year to work with Wright, but Foundation members found themselves implementing the very designs they were learning to draft. This free labor was instrumental in building everything from the winding access road to the last building completed by Wright in 1957, the Pavilion. Apprentices lived in tents away from the core buildings while construction was in progress, and dormitories weren’t completed until 1941. Even still, there were only 14 rooms in the newly completed Apprentice Court. A communal kitchen and dining room served meals at the camp.

Constructed of materials native to the desert itself, Taliesin West is anchored to the desert through foundations of desert sand, cement, and rocks acquired onsite (dubbed “desert masonry”). Buildings, paths, and spaces are oriented to complement the movement of the sun and showcase desert views. Large boulders featuring petroglyphs are installed prominently throughout the landscape and were scavenged from across the property.

The first structure on the tour, and the oldest occupied structure onsite, is Frank Lloyd Wright’s business office. A larger drafting studio, pictured below, was constructed afterwards as a space for his apprentices to work. Just a short distance from the office is a vault, built of desert masonry and designed to protect the irreplaceable drawings churned out by the Fellowship. To harness the natural lighting and breezes that swept through the desert, Wright experimented with canvas as a roofing material around Taliesin West. Tightly stretched over redwood frames, the canvas proved to have poor durability in the Arizona summers. After his death, fiberglass and acrylic panels replaced canvas to improve performance while maintaining the benefits of a retractable roof.

The audio tour I followed takes you on a loop through Taliesin West, starting in Wright’s business office and continuing to the garden room, the Kiva (a theater turned library, then back into a theater), the drafting studio, and finally the Cabaret. Like any Wright crafted building, the design element of “compression and release” is pervasive. I found myself ducking left and right just to squeeze into the Garden Room or under the portal heading to the Kiva. The tactic certainly works, making the space you’re about to enter feel bigger than it is, but I don’t think Wright designed these structures with 6’ tall people in mind. If I could take a trip back I’d do a longer guided tour, which wasn’t an option on the day I visited. I think that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed my tour of the Robbie House in Chicago more than Taliesin West - the audio tour just doesn’t provide the same experience as a knowledgeable guide.

The NJ Futuro House

Tucked away in a corner of Millcreek Park in Willingboro, NJ sits a decrepit bubble of fiberglass and plastic that looks like it was yanked straight out of the 1960s. Stacked boxes of laminate wood flooring block some of the windows, at least those which haven’t yet blown inwards. Taking a peek through the opaque plexiglass reveals an interior that matches the 60s space-age aesthetic of the exterior, with dingy brown-ish tan carpeting covering the floors and a drooping fan that clings to the off-white ceiling. The interior is relatively empty and mostly open inside, save for a rolling desk chair or two and a built-in bench/countertop that rings the outer wall. There are enclosed spaces carved out for a small utility closet and a bathroom, with a short staircase descending down to the boarded up front door.

This abandoned structure is a Futuro House, an invention of Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. Futuro Houses first gained traction as ski cabins in Finland, where they were easy to heat and quick to construct via truck or helicopter delivery to remote mountain locations. The Willingboro Futuro House I visited started life as a “Space Bank”, which isn’t immediately evident when you look at this house today. Upon closer inspection, there are some unique features which stick out on this model: the below-average number of windows (8 vs 16 on a standard model), and an old bank-style security alarm box which remains affixed to the exterior. The “Space Bank” context helps make more sense of the conspicuous lack of bedrooms, a kitchen, or really any partitioning that would make this space livable. It was manufactured just across the Delaware River from Willingboro in Philadelphia, and moved between shopping plazas as a bank branch until it was donated to Willingboro Township in 1975.

Futuro Houses never really took off in the United States as local residents opposed how the radical architectural style clashed with the broader neighborhood aesthetic. Municipal building codes also hampered adoption as Futuro Houses were not designed with US municipal code compliance in mind. Additionally, the 1973 oil crisis shot the cost of plastic through the roof, making them prohibitively expensive to produce. New Jersey’s other Futuro House, once abandoned down the shore in Greenwich, NJ, was removed in 2021 and moved to Oxford, OH for restoration. The former “Space Bank” served for a time as the Parks Department’s headquarters, the township Recreation office, and as a headquarters for the Police Athletic League before falling into disuse.

I doubt the township of Willingboro will do anything with this historic structure until it collapses, as I’m sure it would cost less to tear down than rehabilitate. Maybe somebody like the folks who took the empty shell of a Futuro House from Greenwich will come along and save it. If it can be done in Greenwich (that Futuro House was in far worse shape than this one), then maybe it can happen in Willingboro?

William S. Seward House

At the northern end of Cayuga Lake is the city of Auburn, NY, which was home to William H. Seward and his family. If you’re like me and the name Seward doesn’t ring a bell, he was the man who facilitated the Alaska Purchase and helped Lincoln lead the United States through the Civil War. Born in 1801, Seward purchased the house 1824 and lived there until his death in 1872. The interior is largely as it was in 1872 thanks to William Seward III, who maintained the furnishings and donated the property upon his death. The site occupies a triangular slice of downtown Auburn, and one corner of the property is dedicated to a small park with a towering statue of Seward himself. The house is a New York State Historic Site and on the National Register. It actually began life as a much smaller dwelling and was progressively expanded starting in 1847.

During his storied career, Seward served as an NY State Senator, US Senator, NY Governor, and Secretary of State after loosing the Republican presidential nomination to Abraham Lincoln. His home reflects his travels and pursuits - shelves of books adorn the study and parlor, paintings and prints from around the globe hang from the walls, and artifacts collected from far-off lands sit atop shelves. At one end of the dining rooms is a giant globe, the other a stately portrait of Mrs. Seward. China cabinets filled with fine dinnerware for hosting lavish but crucial dinner parties are posted in the corners. Diplomacy and a good meal often go hand in hand, and Seward would host large dinners to convince other politicians of his positions.

Possibly my favorite collection of Seward’s is the portraits of famous world leaders he encountered that encircle the second floor atrium, often bearing the signature of the subject pictured. While not all of them are authentic (Queen Elizabeth, for example), there’s quite a number of portraits that span from the Middle East to Europe. You can take a guided tour of the entire house from the basement to the 2nd floor where the family lived. My tour guide was great and answered every question I could throw at him.

A series of unfortunate events befell Seward, starting with the assassination of Lincoln and the simultaneous botched assassination attempt on his own life. He had been injured in an accident days before when he jumped from a runaway carriage and broke his arm. The family members staying at his Washington, D.C. apartment encountered the assassin before he could reach Seward, and ultimately 5 would be stabbed including Seward himself. While no-one was killed, his wife Francis died only a short time afterward in 1865. Daughter Fanny, his pride and joy, died in 1866 from tuberculous. He commissioned a painting of her after her untimely death, and it still hangs in the parlor today. The bundle of flowers she clutches and her ghostly pale complexion indicate that the portrait was painted post-mortem. Fanny’s death was a sore subject for Seward, and it was best not to ask about the painting.