The former Ohio Bell Telephone Building, part of Dayton’s skyline for nearly a century

Construction

The building was constructed in 1930 for the Ohio Bell Telephone company.

It was built to replace the old telephone exchange building at Main and Second streets.

The building was erected by the H.R. Blagg Co. and was planned with future expansion in mind.

The structure is 10 stories but was designed for additions up to 20 stories.

It was made of white stone in what was known as the American Perpendicular style of architecture, common among many Bell Telephone buildings of the time.

The structure, with nearly 244,000 square feet of space, was designed to provide room for the new long distance office, three local exchanges, the public business office, and all division and district administrative offices.

According to a 1930 Dayton Daily News story, “The aim was to combine beauty with efficiency in a manner that would make the physical conception of the structure pleasing to the eye and yet allow for the rapid and accurate functioning of equipment in its distribution of telephone calls.”

At the time, Dayton had 45,600 telephones in use and was considered the fastest-growing telephone city in the state. It was estimated that the city would double its telephone use, to 90,000 units, by 1947.

Credit: Bryant Billing

Credit: Bryant Billing

The basement was designed to permit the entrance of large cables leading up to the nerve center of the operation.

Underground, clay pipes contained about 260,000 feet of lead-covered cable. Some sections of the “cable subway” contained over 3600 wires in a sheath.

The building was constructed at the cost of $1,960,000.

At the time, Bell owned more that 2,500 buildings across the nation, probably the largest group of buildings belonging to any one company or institution in the country.

Microwave tower

When developers began building tall buildings in downtown Dayton in the mid 1950s, Ohio Bell expanded its system by constructing the 65-foot tower and added giant microwave transceivers or “ears” to it.

The height of the tower was needed because microwaves are blocked by obstacles. A clear path was needed to reach distant destinations.

The odd-looking tower was a part of Dayton’s skyline for more that a half-century.

Because fiber optics now carry large amounts of bandwidth and satellites have replaced the need for microwave relay, the tower was removed in 2017.