Well, today I proceeded with intent to purchase a 1960’s AT&T communications site out near Kutch Colorado.
Being as this is a cold-war era communications facility it was built to withstand World War III – 1.5 foot thick DoD grade steel reinforced concrete walls, three inch thick steel blast doors, nuclear blast wave rated 50 foot free standing tower, and located in a geographically secure location out on the Eastern plains.
These sites were built to handle military telephone communications using microwave point-to-point systems in the 4, 6, and 11Ghz bands. The Kutch site was part of a fail-over communications system for NORAD in Colorado Springs and was the carrier for communications traffic between Calhan and Hugo.
Since the late 90’s some friends and I have researched these old cold warriors and have tracked down most of them in Colorado, taking lots of photos along the way.
Back in 2000 AT&T liquidated several of these sites across the US and they were bought by American Tower, a cell site wholesaler, and by 2002 American Tower had determined which towers were close enough to civilization to be worth keeping and renting, and dumped the remainder on the market.
Back in 2002 we desperately wanted to buy one of these sites, but none of us were in the proper position to do so. So we continued finding and documenting these sites and enjoying the state-wide scavenger hunt, when in 2004 I ran into a fellow named Kent who happened to own one of these sites at Atwood which was in nearly original condition… So we drove up and met with Kent, took a couple DVDs worth of media, thanked him and went on our way.
Fast forward six years… I was on the ColdWarComms list and talking with folks about these sites and I mentioned Kutch. Well it turns out Kent owned Kutch as well and sent me an email asking if was interested in buying it. So I talked it over with these friends and after some deliberation, decided to buy it.
Today we looked over the site in detail and will be signing the paperwork this week to acquire the deed.