This tower on Thompson Road in Sun Prairie, WI, was built in the Late 1950s to transmit and receive data for the SAGE building at Truax Field, about 5.7 miles southwest of this tower. This building was a massive facility that contained all of the computer systems, power systems, operator support to operate the equipment and analyze/transmit the radar signals to the worldwide SAGE system.
Most of the data that moved in and out of the SAGE building at Truax passed through this microwave tower. The connection was made via hardened communications cables from Truax to the tower.
After it ceased operations in the early 1980s, the tower site was essentially abandoned for a while. The City of Sun Prairie was trying to figure out what to do with this tower as it was an eyesore, expensive to maintain, and had it's fair share of issues over the years. On one occasion, a tank full of diesel fuel was found on the site, and had to be pumped out before it leaked (especially as this fuel, if it leaked, would pose a dangerous hazard to the elementary school right next door). Someone also had to keep the tower illuminated at night. However, it would be even more expensive to demolish it, and doing that was not as easy a task as one may think, these towers were built so ruggedly that one attempt at using explosives on the legs of a similar tower only lowered it less than a foot.
The tower would soon show its worth, though. Around the turn of the millenium, the mobile phone era coupled with multiple other new communications systems suddenly turned the useless tower into a priceless relay asset again. Now it’s difficult to spot a spare section of tower that isn’t in use.
Due to the city's rapid growth, especially to the west, this tower is now smack dab in the middle of suburban Sun Prairie, right next door to Royal Oaks Elementary School (which came in 1975) , and across the street from Prairie View Middle School (which came in 1998). It's impossible to miss, as the tower dwarfs everything around it, including the 2 large schools adjacent to it; and can be seen from miles away.