Four Telegraphy Towers

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1909

At the upper part of the El Cabo neighbourhood there was a radiotelegraph installation made up of four large metal communication towers and a complementary building intended to house the machinery and offices of the station. These elements, especially the two pairs of huge antennas, were so characteristic and gave so much personality to the place that shortly after it was urbanised, it was called the Cuatro Torres neighbourhood.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the most advanced telegraphy was that carried out through radio waves transmitted without cables. For this, it was necessary to install antennas that acted as transmitters and receivers of signals. In this regard, since 1907 the Ministry of the Navy of Spain had been studying the establishment of a network of radiotelegraph stations between the Peninsula, the Canary Islands and the Spanish possessions in Morocco. The company that carried out the work to establish these stations was Marconi Wireless Telegraph.

In February 1909 this company sent two of its engineers to Tenerife to carry out preliminary studies. The area chosen for the installation was a large plot located to the south of the town, at the upper part of the El Cabo neighbourhood. Immediately, the four 70-metre-high metal towers began to be manufactured which, together with a building that would act as a warehouse and office, would form the new Tenerife Radiotelegraph Station which finally began operating on 2 June 1911.

This installation received and replied to a message sent from the sadly famous British transatlantic Titanic in April 1912 when it was in the port of Southampton, ready to start its fateful first and final voyage.

The towers, landmarks in the Santa Cruz landscape of that time, operated until the 1930s, when the station was moved to Geneto. Here the antennas were replaced by about 12 wooden posts between 8 and 12 metres high.

The tall metal structures located in the El Cabo neighbourhood, elements that stood out in the urban landscape of the city at that time due to their size, remained standing, no longer functional, for several more years until their final dismantling.

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