The following story came recently from Perry Williams, W1UED, the ARRL Archivist, in response to the question "Why was Connecticut chosen as the site for ARRL?"

To answer that question, consider a parable:

"Why did the tree choose to grow in this forest?"

Because that is where the seed fell on fertile ground.

The seed that became ARRL fell on Hartford, Connecticut, in 1914.

When it sprouted, it was cultivated initially by two men; Hiram Percy Maxim, 1WH (at first; after WW 1, more significantly (in the long run), W1AW. Maxim was an inventor in a family of inventors, an industrialist: founder of the Maxim Silencer Company, making devices to keep firearms and engines quiet; also, a principal in a company involved first in making bicycles and then autos; a writer, with an early interest also in motion pictures (founder of the Amateur Cinematographic League) and on and on, most of these activities in or near Hartford, where he lived with his family. Also, manning the hoe and trowel around the ARRL seedling was a young Hartford radio amateur, Clarence D. Tuska, 1WD, still in his teens when the League began.

Soon, Maxim settled in as President, an office he held until his death in 1936. The Secretary was Tuska, in the early days. Maxim and Tuska founded the magazine QST as a private venture in 1915 out of their own pockets, and Tuska was its Editor until the United States got into WW 1, amateurs were taken off the air, Tuska closed down the "offices" of ARRL and QST (in his mother's kitchen), and joined the Army.

The story doesn't end there of course: to carry on with it, please see Two Hundred Meters and Down, by Clinton B DeSoto.

By the time the Tree was widespread enough to merit relocation elsewhere [the issue was examined many times by the ARRL's elected, unpaid Board], transplanting it never came out as feasible: the Hartford-area roots were too deep.

-- Perry F. Williams, W1UED, Archivist, ARRL