The United States Navy arrived in the Jim Creek Valley in Snohomish County in late 1953 and began construction on the world's most powerful radio transmitter, which was completed the following year. In its original form, it was designed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and was capable of transmitting messages instantly to every one of the navy's installations, ships, and aircraft all over the world, including submarines traveling beneath the ocean's surface. 
Six steel towers on the summit of Blue Mountain and six on Wheeler Mountain to the north were connected by cables with lengths varying from 5,640 to 8,700 feet. The result was a massive dish formed by the zig-zag pattern of ten cables strung between the towers in a zig-zag pattern over the valley. Additional towers that rise from the valley floor provide the necessary support for the cables' midpoint energization through vertical cables carried by these towers. It is powered by a direct transmission line from Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, and a 2,500-kilowatt Worthington diesel-powered standby generator was constructed in 1957 as a backup power source. 
Many features of the complex, including the Worthington generator, were determined to be suitable for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The generator, which has been in service for more than 60 years, was scheduled to be removed and replaced in 2019.
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