Sutro Tower, Inc.

Sutro Tower, Inc. is a California corporation founded in 1968 by the owners of television stations KTVU, KRON, KPIX and KGO. It owns and operates Sutro Tower, a 977-foot-high steel tower on San Francisco's Mount Sutro whose highest antennas reach 1,811 feet above sea level. The tower began operation on July 4, 1973, and is used by 10 television stations, 3 FM radio stations, satellite and cable providers, and nearly two dozen public and commercial wireless communication services. Sutro Tower, Inc. manages the structure and the leasing and use of its spaces, including antenna space leased to radio stations, public agencies, cable and satellite companies, and other telecommunications clients.

Sutro Tower is named for the hill at its base, Mount Sutro, which is named for Adolph Sutro, a Prussia-born Gold Rush engineer and real estate investor who was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1894. His grandson, Adolph G. Sutro, built a mansion on the hill in the 1930s and sold it in 1948 to American Broadcasting Company for use as the transmitter site for its new television station, KGO-TV, which premiered on May 5, 1949. In the mid-1960s, Bay Area television stations were receiving complaints of poor reception in many parts of the area and conceived a project to build a taller tower and a larger transmission building to accommodate most of the stations in the Bay Area. Two sites were considered: the Sutro site and Mount San Bruno; the Mount San Bruno site was determined to be too close to the airport for a taller tower, so the Sutro site was selected. After years of hearings and litigation, construction of the $4 million Sutro Tower project began in 1971. Sutro Tower was designed by Albert C. Martin & Associates of Los Angeles and fabricated and erected by Kline Towers, a subsidiary of Kline Iron and Steel of South Carolina. Sutro Tower, Inc. was founded in 1968 by the owners of television stations KTVU, KRON, KPIX and KGO, whose licensees remain the tower's owners. The tower began operation on July 4, 1973.

Owner and operator of San Francisco's highest point for broadcast and communications transmission.

• Sutro Tower

  A 977-foot-high steel tower on San Francisco's Mount Sutro, with its base at an elevation of 834 feet and its highest antennas 1,811 feet above sea level.

1. 1Sutro Tower - Official Sitesutrotower.com
2. 2Tower History — Sutro Tower - Official Sitesutrotower.com
3. 3About The Tower — Sutro Tower - Official Sitesutrotower.com