Behind the scenes of a camo site from 1995

A year ago, I passed by what was easily the weirdest cell site I have ever seen. At first, I wasn't even sure it was a cell site, but it had to be. So I started to do a little research (with the help of TelcomJunkie) and found out some more info. I was not able to find anything initially when doing Google searches, but he soon found out why. The tower is so old that it pre-dates the modern carriers. Who knew!
The tower was originally commissioned by *Cellular One*, which later became Airtouch Wireless, which later became Verizon Wireless. The official name of the at first was AirTouch Cellular Communications Tower at Domino's Farms. I found out that the University of Michigan actually had in their library documents and sketches from the development of this site, and I visited them today.
The following is a letter sent by the designer Gunnar Birkerts to the Senior VP at Cell One about the design (clearly, Cell One did not like it):


Next up is what seems to be an undated conceptual sketch:


Here is another concept sketch:


And here is the final design choice:


Next is an article about the tower and other early camo sites from the Wall Street Journal in 1997:


And now, for the actual photos. The first is an HDR photo to compensate for the awful weather.:


The equipment shelter is so unusually large because this was originally an analog AMPS site, which required much larger equipment that today (which is now a CDMA/LTE site)








Enough warnings to keep me away from the base:


All in all, very, very cool.

 

Here is the original JPEG. You should be able to zoom in on it now.

 

lol. I only say camo because you are not supposed to know its a cell site, and most people don't