VA-T11 Forerunner of Wireless Telegraphy

Marker text: FORERUNNER OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY

From nearby Bear's Den Mountain to the Catoctin Ridge, a distance of fourteen miles, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, dentist, sent the first aerial wireless signals, 1866-73, using kites flown by copper wires. Loomis received a patent in 1872 and his company was chartered by Congress in 1873, but lack of captial frustrated his experiments. He died in 1886.

Virginia Conservation Commission, 1948.