AT&T "Leesburg 5" Project Office (Data Center)

USA / Virginia / Lovettsville /
 military, Cold War 1947-1991, telecommunication, bunker, microwave tower / microwave transmission, data center, tropospheric scatter station, underground station, underground facility, underground station entrance / exit
Terminal station on the AT&T Long Lines Project Office chain of troposcatter communications stations, the Leesburg site went online in 1964 servicing the US Military Automatic Voice Network (AUTOVON) communications network. Linked to other sites via the Peters Mountain relay site to the S, the Leesburg 5 and its sister site outside Hagerstown received US Government and Military Command communications and was quickly able to transmit orders down the troposcatter chain to the terminal station at Chatham in North Carolina where it would be relayed to Fort Bragg, Pope and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Later microwave communications links directly connected Leesburg to both the Mount Weather and Corkscrew CoG sites.

Like the other Project Office sites, Leesburg was primarily located in a subterranean bunker which was nuclear-hardened to ensure operation in the event of attack and all topside equipmnent was similarly hardened. The site is still owned by AT&T but is no longer active as a transmission facility, with both the troposcatter and microwave transmission antennae being recently removed.

coldwar-c4i.net/ATT_Project/VA01/index.html
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Offices
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   39°15'58"N   77°42'23"W

Comments

  • LEESBURG #5 - Autovon and World Wide Wideband Communications Hub, Switching System, and Terminus. Mid Point of Troposcatter link between Hagerston # and points house. Ultra hardened link that provided a hardened ink Down the mountain to the Dranesville control center which has a duplcate command faciltiy at this site.
  • A very impressive & still active facility.
This article was last modified 2 years ago