List of tallest structures in the United States

The height of structures in the United States has been poorly documented. However, the data is a matter of public record, appearing in documents maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

This list is populated heavily by antenna masts. The engineering aspects of super-tall masts are highly specialized. Only four companies erect the majority of such structures: Doty Moore Tower Services (Cedar Hill, Texas); Kline Towers (Columbia, South Carolina); LeBlanc Royal Telecom (Oakville, Ontario); and Stainless Inc. (North Wales, Pennsylvania). The design and construction are largely governed by RS222E Electronic Industries Alliance standards. A 1,000-foot (300 m) mast costs between $0.7 and $1.1 million to build, while a 2,000-foot (610 m) mast costs $2.4 to $4 million. Prices generally vary depending on tower capacity and wind loading specifications.

A common misperception is that landmarks such as the Stratosphere Tower are the tallest United States structures, but they are in fact the tallest buildings. Likewise Taipei 101 was often misrepresented as the world's tallest structure (although it was the tallest occupied building, before the certification of Dubai's Burj Khalifa as such), but in fact is far eclipsed by antenna towers in over a dozen states in the United States and in other countries.

In the United States, the FAA and the FCC must approve all towers exceeding 200 feet (61 m) in height. Furthermore, it is very difficult to get permission for structures over 2,000 feet (610 m) high. The FCC presumes them to be inconsistent with the public interest, while the FAA presumes them to be a hazard to air navigation, resulting in poor airspace usage. A significant burden of proof is placed on the applicant to show that such a structure is in the public's best interests. Only when both agencies have resolved all legal, safety, and management concerns is such an application approved.

Since 1978 the United States has maintained eleven tethered aerostats sites along the southern borders. These balloons rise to 18,000 feet (5,500 m), carrying radar units for drug interdiction purposes. However, since the balloons are aided by buoyancy and are not permanent they are not considered true structures.

State-by-state listing

Alabama
  • WTTO Television Tower (Birmingham WB-21)
  • American Tower Pensacola Site
    • Height: 2,000 ft (610 m)
    • Robertsdale
    • Heaviest Tower Ever Stacked
    • 13 inch solid legs
    • 3½" guy wires

Alaska

Arizona
  • Midwest Tower Dolan Springs
  • Chimney of Hayden Smelter
    • Height: 1,001 ft (305 m)
  • Flue gas stacks of the Navajo Generating Station
    • Height: 775 ft (236 m)
    • Page (36°54′12″N 111°23′25″W)
    • Year built: 1996-1998
    • Owner: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (24.3%), SRP (21.7%), Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power (21.2%), Arizona Public Service Co. (14.0%), NV Energy (11.3%), Tucson Electric Power (7.5%)
    • The Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant located 4 miles (6 km) east of Page, has three 775 ft (236 m) lined, reinforced concrete stacks. The plant's original stacks were demolished in the late 1990s after being replaced by larger diameter stacks of the same height. The new stacks were required to accommodate cooler, saturated flue gas that resulted when wet SO2 scrubbers were added.
  • The tallest radio tower is the 650 ft (198 m) KSZR (97.5) tower in Oro Valley near Tucson.

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii
  • Navy VLF Antenna
    • Height: 1,503 ft (458 m)
    • Lualualei (21°25′22″N 158°09′01″W)
    • Year built: 1972
    • Owner: U.S. Navy / ROICC Pearl Harbor
    • The record is held by two towers, exactly identical, that reach 1,503 ft (458 m) high. They are used to communicate with submarines throughout the Pacific basin. The second-tallest structure is the KHON-TV (Honolulu Fox 2) tower at 500 ft (152 m) located at 21°17′28″N 157°50′08″W.

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa
  • WOI Television Tower (Des Moines ABC 5)
  • Des Moines Hearst-Argyle Television Tower Alleman
    • Height: 2,000 ft (609.6 m)
    • Alleman (41°48'35.0" N, 93°37'17.0" W)
    • Year built: 1974
  • KCAU TV Tower
    • Height: 2,000 ft (609.6 m)
    • Sioux City (42°35'11.0" N, 96°13'57.0" W)
    • Year built: 1965
  • AFLAC Tower
    • Height: 2,000 ft (609.4 m)
    • Rowley (42°24'02.0" N, 91°50'37.0" W )
    • Year built: 1984
  • American Towers Tower Elkhart
    • Height: 2,000 ft (609.3 m)
    • Elkhart (41°49'48.0" N, 93°36'54.6" W)
    • Year built: 2001

Kansas

Kentucky
  • WAVE Television Tower (Louisville NBC 3) – no longer used
    • Height: 1,739 ft (530 m)
    • La Grange (38°27′23″N 085°25′28″W)
    • Year built: 1990
    • Owner: Raycom Media
    • This tower was built to allow WAVE to reach into parts of the Cincinnati, OH market, which sacrificed the western part of the Louisville DMA. They abandoned a tower in Floyds Knobs, IN when the La Grange tower went on the air. They have since put their HD antenna and transmitter at the Indiana site and abandoned the La Grange tower.

Louisiana

Maine
  • WMTW Television Tower (Portland ABC 8)
    • Height: 1,667 ft (508 m)
    • Baldwin (43°50′44″N 070°45′41″W)
    • Year built: 2001
    • Owner: Hearst-Argyle
    • This tower was built in 2001 to replace WMTW's transmitting facility atop Mount Washington (New Hampshire). It began transmitting on February 5, 2002. The second-tallest structure is the WGME (CBS-13) tower in Raymond,[2] which measures 1,624 ft (495 m).

Maryland
  • WBFF Television Tower (Baltimore Fox 45)
    • Height: 1,280 ft (390 m)
    • Baltimore (39°20′10″N 076°38′58″W)
    • Year built: 1987
    • Owner: Cunningham Communications/Sinclair
    • Second-highest is WMDT-TV ABC/47 (Salisbury) at 1,027 ft (313 m), near Sharptown.

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota
  • KPXM Television Tower (Minneapolis ION 41)
    • Height: 1,505 ft (459 m)
    • Big Lake (45°23′00″N 093°42′31″W)
    • Year built: 1997 (Tower actually constructed in 1982 by the now defunct L.E.O. Broadcasting of St. Cloud Minnesota.)
    • Owner: Paxson Minneapolis / KXLI
    • This station is licensed to St. Cloud; attempts to cover both that city and Minneapolis/St. Paul from a site between the two cities; and used to be known as KXLI-TV.

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska
  • KLKN Television Tower (Lincoln ABC 8)
    • Height: 1,854 ft (565 m)
    • Genoa (41°32′28″N 097°40′46″W)
    • Year built: 1969
    • Owner: Citadel Communications
    • The KDUH-TV tower of 1,965 ft (599 m) at Hemingford collapsed in early 2003 during reinforcement work. The Duhamel Broadcasting Tower Angora was constructed about 30 miles (48 km) away and was completed in September 2003. The replacement tower is 160 m (about 500 ft) shorter than the original. KXVO and KPTM in Omaha (which are co-owned) have an FCC construction permit to build a taller tower that would put their antennas 577 m (roughly 1,900 ft) up. There was also a 2,000 ft (610 m)-mast at Hemingford, which collapsed in 2002.

Nevada
  • Shamrock Tower
    • Height: 1,464 ft (446.2 m)
    • Jessup, Nevada (39°54′46″N 118°55′18″W)
    • Year built: 2012
    • Owner: Shamrock Communications, Inc.; Scranton, PA
    • The BREN Tower, located in Jackass Flats (Area 25) of the Nevada Test Site, was a mast that was built for nuclear radiation testing. The 465-meter-tall, 345-ton structure was constructed by Columbus, Ohio-based Dresser-Ideco in 1962. It was originally erected in Yucca Flat (Area 4) before being dismantled in 1966 and moved to Area 25. The mast was owned by the Department of Energy and maintained by National Security Technologies. On 23 May 2012 the BREN Tower was demolished. The tallest structure in Nevada since mid-2012 is the Shamrock Tower in Jessup, Nevada at 446.2 meters tall, erected in mid-2012. The second-tallest structure in Nevada is the Moapa Entravision Tower at Moapa, a 426.7 metres tall guyed TV mast at Moapa erected in 2008, the third-tallest is the 401-meter Moapa Kemp Tower at Moapa, the fourth-tallest is Stratosphere Tower near downtown Las Vegas, which was erected in 1994–96 and reaches 1,149 ft (350 m) and 921 ft (281 m) without the mast. It is also the second-tallest freestanding structure in the western U.S. after the Kennecott Smokestack in Utah.

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina
  • WBTV Television Tower (Charlotte CBS 3)
  • WITN/WNCT Television Tower/WNCT 107.9 FM Radio (Eastern North Carolina NBC/CBS)
    • Height: 1,985 ft (605 m)
    • Grifton
    • Year Built: 1979
    • Owner: Tall Towers, Inc. (joint venture between WITN and WNCT)
  • WRAL Television Tower

North Dakota

Ohio
  • SpectraSite Communications LLC (Youngstown CBS 27)
    • Height: 1,447 ft (441 m)
    • Boardman (41°3′23.4″N 80°38′43″W)
    • Year built: 1976
    • Owner: American Tower
    • There was a taller tower from 1987 or 1988 until 1994 or 1995 when it was dismantled. It belonged to WCOM-TV (Mansfield Ind 68) and was located just south of Butler, Ohio. WCOM-TV signed on March 3, 1988. Height of the tower was 1,601 ft (488 m). WCOM-TV used the tall tower and a directional antenna to try to serve the Columbus market. The station went dark in 1991 and the tower was sold to a religious broadcaster in South Carolina to be used as two separate 800 ft (240 m) towers. An engineer has reported that part of the tower was still on the ground in Sumter, South Carolina.

Oklahoma
  • Perry Broadcasting Tower (KVSP 103.5 FM)
    • Height: 2,000 ft (609.5 m)
    • Carnegie (35°15′03″N 098°36′54″W)
    • FCC database lists tower as being in Alfalfa, Oklahoma, a nonincorporated community north of Carnegie
    • At 2,000 ft (610 m), this is the tallest structure in Oklahoma.
    • It is used solely for the broadcast of KVSP 103.5 FM (Power 103.5), with studios in Oklahoma City.
    • Year built: 2004
    • Owner: Perry Broadcasting of Southwest Oklahoma
  • KTUL Television Tower (Tulsa ABC 8)

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee
  • WIMZ-FM Tower
    • Height: 1,752 feet (534 m)
    • Knoxville (36°08′06″N 083°43′29″W)
    • Year built: 1963
    • Owner: South Central Communications
    • The tower is home to WIMZ-FM 103.5, whose antenna is at the top. The tower is located one mile (1.6 km) east of House Mountain and stands 1,752 feet (534 m) above ground level. When used for television broadcasts by its former owner, Multimedia, Inc. (former licensee of WBIR-TV, Knoxville) it was shielded by mountains from the audience in the western Knoxville suburbs like Farragut, Oak Ridge, and Oliver Springs. This tower was built because the owners of WBIR-TV could not obtain land atop nearby House Mountain, because the only land suitable for a television tower base on the mountain had been purchased by the station's main competitor WATE-TV, Knoxville. When completed, it was for a short time the tallest man-made structure on earth.

Texas

Height data according to FCC's ASR entries.

Utah
  • Kennecott Smokestack
    • Height: 1,215 ft (370 m)
    • Magna (40°43′18″N 112°11′52″W)
    • Year built: 1979
    • Owner:
    • This incredibly tall smokestack was designed to help the Garfield smelter comply with the Clean Air Act. It is a prominent structure along the shore of the Great Salt Lake adjacent to Interstate 80, about 10 miles (16 km) west of Salt Lake City. The smoke rises to an altitude of 8,540 ft (1,689 m) MSL. The tallest non-smokestack structure is a 660 ft (201 m) radio mast near Plain City, owned by the Bible Broadcasting inc..

Vermont

Virginia
  • American Towers Tower Suffolk
    • Height: 1,254.9 feet (382.5 m)
    • Suffolk at 36°48'31.8" N and 76°30'11.3"
    • Year Built: 2003
    • Owner: American Towers Corp. (ATC)
    • WTKR-DT, WHRO-DT, WTVZ-TV/DT, WPVX-TV/DT

Washington
  • Columbia Center
    • Height: 967 ft (295 m)
    • Seattle, 701 Fifth Avenue (47°36′16″N 122°19′48″W)
    • Year built: 1982-85
    • Owner: Equity Office Properties
    • The Columbia Center was intended to be 1,005 ft (306 m) tall but was disapproved by the FAA. It was built in 1982-85 and has 76 floors.
  • KREM Tower
    • The tallest antenna tower is the 940 ft (287 m) KREM (CBS-2) tower at Spokane.

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Puerto Rico

An incomplete lists of tallest structures in Puerto Rico. Main reference: U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) database

StructureHeight (ft)Height (metres)Year builtStructure TypeUsePlaceComments
Aguada VLF transmission mast1,205 ft (367 m)367.3 m?Guyed mastVLF/LF-transmissionAguadaoperated by US Navy
Telemundo WKAQ TV Tower1,105 ft (337 m)336.8 m1971Guyed mastUHF/VHF-transmissionCayey
Cayey Pegasus Broadcasting Tower1,091 ft (333 m)332.5 m1966Guyed mastUHF/VHF-transmissionCayeyDestroyed by Hurricane Maria - Sept 20, 2017
Arso Radio Tower682 ft (208 m)208 m1996Guyed mastUHF/VHF-transmissionCabo Rojo
La Cadena del Milagro Tower548 ft (167 m)167 m1991Lattice towerUHF/VHF-transmissionUtuadoDestroyed by Hurricane Maria - Sept 20, 2017
Arecibo Observatory492 ft (150 m)150 m1963Radio telescopeRadio and Radar astronomyAreciboWorld's largest radio telescope

By structural type

Tallest structures in the United States for different uses/structural types. Please expand and/or correct, if necessary

CategoryStructureCityHeight
Guyed mastKVLY-TV mastBlanchard, ND2,063 feet (628.8 m)
SkyscraperOne World Trade CenterNew York City, NY1,776 feet (541.3 m)
Guyed mast insulated against groundVLF transmitter LualualeiLualualei, HI1,503 feet (458.1 m)
ChimneyHomer City Generating StationHomer City, PA1,217 feet (370.9 m)
Concrete towerStratosphere TowerLas Vegas, NV1,149 feet (350.2 m)
Free-standing lattice towerWITI TV TowerShorewood, WI1,081 feet (329.5 m)
BridgeRoyal Gorge BridgeCañon City, CO1,053 feet (321.0 m)
Suspension BridgeGolden Gate BridgeSan Francisco, CA746 feet (227.4 m)
DamOroville DamOroville, CA770 feet (234.7 m)
MasonryAnaconda Smelter StackAnaconda, MT585 feet (178.3 m)
Monumental columnSan Jacinto MonumentLa Porte, TX567 feet (172.8 m)
StoneWashington MonumentWashington, DC555 feet (169.2 m)
Industrial buildingVABKennedy Space Center, FL526 feet (160.3 m)
ChurchRiverside ChurchNew York City, NY392 feet (119.5 m)
Aerial tramway support pillarRoosevelt Island TramwayNew York City, NY250 feet (76.2 m)

See also

Notes and references
  1. List of tallest structures in the world#Current
  2. http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProASRLookup.php?tabSearchType=ASR+Search&sASR=1024383&HorizAMSL=551&CallLetters=WGME
  3. http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProASRLookup.php?tabSearchType=ASR+Search&sASR=1024374&HorizAMSL=613&CallLetters=WUNI
  4. http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProASRLookup.php?tabSearchType=ASR+Search&sASR=1003433&HorizAMSL=434&CallLetters=WBZ-TV
  5. http://www.wtc.com/about/freedom-tower
  6. http://www.fccinfo.com/CMDProEngine.php?sCurrentService=AM&tabSearchType=Appl&sAppIDNumber=47992&sHours=N
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.