“CARTWHEEL” Tower, Fort Reno, Washington, DC, 2020.
All the top secret pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49576247768/
#photography
Captured with the Rodenstock 23mm/5.6 HR Digaron-S lens (@ f/6,3), Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50), Phase One XT camera (1/25 sec exposure).
This unassuming cylindrical tower, at first glance perhaps a grain silo or water tower, was part of a secret “continuity of government” microwave communications network. Built in the early 1960’s, a network of similar towers located around the capital region linked the White House with critical sites such as Camp David, Raven Rock, and Mount Weather.
The upper white section of the tower is actually a plexiglass radome, concealing various microwave and UHF radio antennas.
CARTWHEEL and its cousins were decommissioned around 1990. Most of the towers, mainly atop mountains in remote areas, were demolished or left to rot. However, CARTWHEEL and CORKSCREW (on a mountain near the Appalachian trail in central Maryland) have been maintained in good condition, now repurposed by the FAA.
Despite CARTWHEEL being located in the middle of a residential neighborhood in a busy city and staffed by military personnel, officials went to great lengths to conceal the true purpose of these towers. They hid in plain sight, appearing to be silos or water towers (they even used civilian water trucks to send crews to some of the towers).
It was only after the cold war ended that the details of the network were declassified.
Obsolete secret infrastructure like CARTWHEEL tower, only revealed decades later, intrigues me not just for its scale and design, but also for the obvious question it gives rise to. If this stuff effectively managed to stay unnoticed for decades, what newer secrets are hiding under our noses today?
@mattblaze@federate.social one does wonder. Stuff like this mostly https://www.loudountimes.com/news/whats-up-there-theres-more-than-meets-the-eye-to-short-hill-mountain/article_9623fccb-9b77-5464-870c-bc892ce68768.html
@mattblaze@federate.social have a look for the history of the Capenhurst tower in the UK, if you’re not familiar with that already.
Kinda related, but slightly in reverse.
@mattblaze@federate.social I walk past this regularly and had no idea… thanks.
The Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress now occupies what was once a cold war Federal Reserve facility for storing money in Culpeper, VA.
(for some reason you still need cash after everything else has been vaporized)The buried concrete vaults are repurposed for storing nitrate film. (much better use IMHO)
