As kids, my neighborhood friends and I would stand beneath our town’s water tower and marvel at it like it was the Eiffel Tower. We would wonder what the view looked like from the top. This was before camera drones, of course, back when children were forced to suffer through the burden of imagination. In those days, the water tower was the tallest thing around, and in a small town, that qualified as entertainment.
On family road trips after dark, my brother and I were equally mesmerized by the blinking lights atop the local radio tower. To kids whose worldview stretched roughly to the county line, those flashing red bulbs might as well have been signals from another planet. Truth be told, they are still kind of fascinating.
In Guthrie County, we generally don’t stack buildings on top of one another. We have plenty of room to spread out — plus a healthy respect for tornadoes. As a result, most buildings here are built wide instead of tall.
One major exception is 801 Grand in downtown Des Moines. At 630 feet and 45 stories, it remains Iowa’s tallest building. Construction began in 1989 and wrapped up in 1991, around the same time I moved to Des Moines to work downtown. Each evening, I would stop in a nearby parking ramp and watch the tower rise higher into the skyline. It was the same sense of wonder I had as a kid staring up at the town water tower, only now with hard hats and steel beams.
Before 801 Grand claimed the title, the Ruan Center held the crown at nearly 460 feet. Built in 1975 by Ruan Transportation, the high-rise sits at the slightly ominous address of 666 Grand Ave. in Des Moines. In 1975, I was still more impressed by radio antennas than office buildings, but the Ruan Center must have looked futuristic in its day.
Today, Iowa’s skylines — and plenty of rural landscapes — are dotted with cellphone towers. According to Airwave Advisors, the United States had more than 417,000 mobile wireless cell sites in 2020. Companies such as American Tower Corporation, Crown Castle and SBA Communications have turned towers into big business.
The scenery has changed over the years. Water towers may still dominate the rural skylines, but radio towers now compete with cellphone arrays and blinking aviation lights. Meanwhile, some things never really change. The kid in me still looks up.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital newsletter
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707