SHAPELESS masses of stone and iron ore, sleeping beneath the soil of Minnesota, have been raised from their age-old beds to answer the call of engineer, architect and builder .. . men who vision great buildings and make their visions real. Today such a vision is taking form before our eyes, cleancut and symmetrical, as the new Minneapolis telephone building rises into the higher skyline, stone upon stone, steel upon steel. The new telephone building is born of the soil on which it stands . . . it is truly a Minnesota product. Granite for the first floor comes from Morton . . . limestone for the other floors from Kasota… much of the cement from Duluth ..steel made from ore taken from the Mesaba Range and fabricated in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis architects designed the building . . . Minneapolis contractors use local labor in its construction. Minnesota firms have supplied the various materials and building equipment. Next year when this structure is completed, and in the years that follow, hundreds of men and women of Minneapolis will work therein daily, using the building and the equipment it will contain to help provide telephone service for this city.
The new telephone building is an expression of faith in the continued growth and progress of Minneapolis . . . a city which is destined to contain the homes of more and more people who will depend upon the telephone to carry their business and social messages.
Designed by Rhodes Robertson, construction began on the Northwestern Bell Telephone Building in 1930. The tower was clad in limestone from Kasota and granite exterior from Morton, Minnesota. 755 windows were trimmed with steel and cast aluminum, doors are bronze and the first floor is graced with marble walls. Exterior details include electric bolts and a stylized thunder bird above the main entrance. During construction, a 1920s Northwestern Bell building on the site was stripped and the steel frame was incorporated into the new structure. When it was completed in 1932, the 26 story telephone building was the second highest skyscraper in the city. The first floor was devoted to Northwestern Bell’s business offices, public telephone booths, and rooms for long distance calls. The next 12 floors contained long distance switchboards, telephone operations equipment, a lunch room and facilities for telephone operators. The 14th was mechanical. A tower on the 15th through 24th floors housed administrative offices of the telephone company and the 25th and 26th floors held additional mechanicals. Three basement floors contained power and heating equipment and telephone cable vaults. The building grew a little taller when a rooftop, penthouse, antenna structure designed by Magney, Tusler & Setter was added in 1958. A second tier of microwave antennas appeared in 1972.