1963 ATT Building
May 2, 2008 – 9:13 am
BURIAL SITE…Workmen of Millie and Severson, Long Beach contractor on the American Telephone and Telegraph’s “hardened” transcontinental cable base in Los Osos Valley, are getting well along with their work. When completed next summer, this great underground structure providing 43,000 square feet of space will be buried as a measure of national defense.
November 30, 1963
At this time my grandmother was sharing a party line with her brother’s family who lived a mile down the road, but ATT was working on building the network.
You may not notice this two-story building, driving by it on Los Osos Valley road. It’s the one buried underground. This was the last link in a transcontinental cable system connecting Japan and the United States.
Over 1,300 tons of steel and 6,600 cubic yards of concrete went into the building. It included air conditioning and two 500-kilowatt electric generators. The installation cost about $200 million. In the era before satellite communication and during the Cold War it was considered “prime military importance.” It was designed to withstand a nuclear blast short of a direct hit.
Sorry San Luis Obispo, was nice knowing ya.
When fully equipped the new system would add about 9,000 circuits to the 15,000 now spanning the nation. It was scheduled be operational in 1965.
During this same time period the front pages of every newspaper in the nation were filled with news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Those pages will be the next post.
