History of Communications at Point Reyes
RCA / Marconi Wireless Stations:
Guglielmo Marconi sited and commissioned the building of wireless telegraphy transmitting station in Bolinas and receiving station in Marshall, on Tomales Bay, in 1913-14. They formed the foundation for the most successful and powerful ship to shore and land station, known as “KPH”, on the Pacific Rim. The Marshall station was replaced in 1929 by a new Art Deco-designed facility at Point Reyes Beach on the “G” Ranch. Few of the succeeding generations of antennas, arranged in “farms”, remain at the two sites. However, the radio equipment, some of it dating to the World War II-era, remains intact, functional, and used for ceremonial occasions by former RCA key operators. The Monterey cypress “tree tunnel” at the Point Reyes station is a signature landscape feature that evokes some of the prestige that RCA placed in this profitable, historic operation. Studies are underway to ultimately list both National Seashore sites and the Marshall facility, now a California State Parks conference center, together as a multiple property National Historic Landmark.
Saving a piece of history...
Park staff and dedicated volunteers worked this year to preserve the structures, artifacts and records of the historic RCA/Marconi radio facilities, including the Bolinas transmitting station and the Point Reyes receiving station. The facilities date from 1913, the earliest days of wireless communication, and research indicates that together with the Marshall Marconi receiving station (now a State Park conference center), the sites comprise what appear to be the last intact Marconi-era coast station in North America.
The park archivist has begun the task of organizing over 200 linear feet of operations records inherited from MCI and coordinating curatorial work related to preserving the historic radio equipment. Volunteers from the Maritime Radio Historical Society logged over 1800 hours this year organizing and restoring artifacts and equipment. MRHS volunteers put station KPH back on the air for the annual July 12 commemoration of the last commercial transmission of Morse Code in the U.S.