Marconi Station exhibit open at Sippican Historical Society

Sippicane, Maryland

From Sippican Vilage Soup: Marconi Station exhibit open at Sippican Historical Society
Marion — The Sippican Historical Society's new exhibit, "The Marion Marconi Station," is now open.

Marion was once home to the world's largest and most powerful wireless telegraph station, built in 1914 by the pioneering Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. The Marion installation boasted fourteen towers, each standing more than 400 feet tall. The station was designed to handle all transatlantic radio traffic, communicating directly with another high-powered wireless plant in Norway.

So impressive was the station at the time of its installation, it was referred to as "one of the wonders of the twentieth century.”

The Marion station made several historically notable radio contacts—twice with Admiral Richard Byrd during his Arctic expeditions, with Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and his wife on flights over the Atlantic and Europe, and routinely with the Graf Zeppelin en route between Berlin and South America.

Marion was the sending station for long-wave transmissions of weather information; Chatham on Cape Cod was the receiving station. At 300 kilowatts output, the Marion station's power plant was the most powerful of its day.

During World War II, U.S. armed forces - including the Army, Navy, and Air Force - used the station. All that remains of the elaborate antenna array today is a fragment of one of the three 300-foot short-wave towers that were erected in the station's later years; the others were dismantled in 1960.

The exhibit can be viewed during the Sippican Historical Society Museum’s normal business hours, which are Wednesday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.. Admission to the Museum is free.

For more information, call (508)748-1116 or email info@sippicanhistoricalsociety.org.