North Dakota: Land of Tall Towers

Part of the Fall Trip 2009

Eastern North Dakota is farm country. People there grow everything from wheat (and lots of it) to sugar beets to corn and alfalfa. It's good land, flat, cheap, and sparsely populated—and there's a lot of it. For broadcasters looking to cover this enormous area in the pre-satellite era—the television market stretches over 200 miles from southern Manitoba to the South Dakota line—there were few economical choices other than building very tall towers. That is why North Dakota became home to what were for many years the tallest and second-tallest structures in the world. They were, for a bit over a decade, eclipsed by a broadcast tower in Warsaw, which failed in 1991, and have since been eclipsed again by a huge monument to oil wealth in the UAE, Burj Dubai.

One of these towers, the KVLY-TV (11/44 Fargo) tower, remains the tallest structure in the United States, at 2,063 feet. The KXJB (4/38 Fargo) tower, about five miles away, is three feet shorter. Other stations in the area also have tall towers, in absolute terms, but they are significantly shorter than those two: WDAY-TV (6/21 Fargo) is 1,205 feet, its satellite WDAZ-TV (8 Devils Lake) is 1,461 feet, and Fox sisters KVRR (15/19 Fargo), KBRR (10 Thief River Falls, Minn.), and KNRR (12 Pembina) are 1,101, 750, and 1,438 feet, respectively. You'll find photos of all of them except KNRR (I never made it up as far as Pembina, although it's historically important as the birthplace of Canada's Global network) below, along with miscellaneous FMs and two of Prairie Public TV's stations.

We begin, actually, on the east side of the Red River, in Euclid, Minnesota, at what looks to all appearances to be a large AM directional array….

Euclid towers
Euclid towers
Euclid tower farm
Euclid tower farm
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR antennas
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR antennas
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR tx bldg
KCGE/KGFE/KBRR tx bldg
MPR tower
MPR tower
MPR antennas
MPR antennas
MPR tx bldg
MPR tx bldg
Euclid tower bases
Euclid tower bases
KSNR tx bldg
KSNR tx bldg
KSNR antenna
KSNR antenna
WDAZ-TV tower
WDAZ-TV tower
WDAZ-TV tx bldg
WDAZ-TV tx bldg
KVLY-TV from a distance
KVLY-TV from a distance
KXJB from a distance
KXJB from a distance
KVLY-TV (11/44 Fargo)
KVLY-TV (11/44 Fargo)
KVLY antenna
KVLY antenna
KVLY-TV tx bldg
KVLY-TV tx bldg
KVLY-TV DTV tx
KVLY-TV DTV tx
KVLY-TV original tx
KVLY-TV original tx
KVLY-TV analog tx
KVLY-TV analog tx
KVLY-TV GE tx (I)
KVLY-TV GE tx (I)
KVLY-TV GE tx (II)
KVLY-TV GE tx (II)
KVLY-TV tower again
KVLY-TV tower again
KXJB-TV tower
KXJB-TV tower
KXJB-TV aux antenna
KXJB-TV aux antenna
KXJB-TV main antenna
KXJB-TV main antenna
KXJB tx building
KXJB tx building
KXJB-TV ASRNs
KXJB-TV ASRNs
KXJB-TV towers
KXJB-TV towers
KVMI tower
KVMI tower
KVMI antenna
KVMI antenna
KMJO tower
KMJO tower
KMJO antenna
KMJO antenna
Amenia tower farm
Amenia tower farm
WDAY-TV sign
WDAY-TV sign
WDAY-TV tx bldg
WDAY-TV tx bldg
WDAY-TV antennas
WDAY-TV antennas
KFME antennas
KFME antennas
KFNW-FM antenna
KFNW-FM antenna

Copyright 2009 Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved.