To prevent employees from stopping work, an 8-story, 11,000-ton building in the United States was moved 46 meters.

If a company is doing very well and runs out of office space, they will definitely move to a larger office.

What if the company already owns a building? The answer is simple: they will either demolish and rebuild or sell the building and buy a bigger one.

Few companies would think of moving an entire building to create space for a larger one. This approach can save old buildings from demolition and seems quite cost-effective.

In 1930, someone actually did this—a small miracle in human engineering history. But it wasn’t to save costs; it was to keep employees working without interruption.

Moving the Building: Indiana Bell Building

In 1929, the Indiana Bell Telephone Company (AT&T) purchased the Central United Telephone Company building as their headquarters. The building was well-located, eight stories tall, and quite large for that time.

However, Bell Telephone had about 600 employees, and the building was starting to feel too small. So, they needed a bigger building.

Initially, they considered demolishing and rebuilding the building, but since they were a telephone service provider, demolishing the building would likely mean halting service for a long time.

Although business competition wasn’t as fierce then as it is now, a long service outage could have led to their collapse.

Caption: Funnette Family Museum, with a portrait of engineer son Little Funnette

So, they consulted a well-known engineer of the time, Kurt Vonnegut (whose son was a writer and personally experienced the building move; his books reportedly contain many descriptions of moving buildings). Vonnegut suggested they could move the entire building to make room for expansion.

This solution was a win-win: employees could continue working as usual, the old building wouldn’t need to be demolished, and a new building could be constructed.

Undoubtedly, this was a difficult engineering feat. The building weighed about 11,000 tons, and lifting such weight was no easy task. They also had to ensure the building wasn’t damaged and that employees’ daily activities continued smoothly.

How to Move a Building?

On October 12, 1930, the project began. Workers first extended all utility cables and pipes (including thousands of telephone lines, cables, gas pipes, sewers, and water pipes) to make them more flexible. Then, they placed a concrete foundation under the building, which measured 30 by 41 meters at the base.

Next, they lifted the building—lifting was essential for moving it. Engineers used hydraulic jacks placed at each corner of the building.

Caption: Workers on site

They only lifted the building 0.65 centimeters initially, then placed Oregon cedarwood logs underneath as rollers. Some sources say they used about 75 tons of cedarwood (though records from that era are not very precise).

They then used steamrollers to move the building. When the weight was transferred from one roller to another, workers ahead of the building would place the next roller, slowly advancing the structure—similar to how ancient Egyptians pulled stones for pyramids.

Every six turns of the jacks, the building moved about 1 centimeter, progressing at about 38 centimeters per hour.

The entire building was moved 16 meters south and rotated 90 degrees, then moved 30 meters west, totaling a shift of 46 meters.

Caption: The white tunnel in the lower right is an access tunnel

As for Bell employees, they continued working normally because everything inside the building remained operational. To prevent disruption, engineers designed a tunnel for employees to enter the building during construction.

This is the white curved tunnel shown in the picture. The main entrance was extended, and the building was rotated along this curved tunnel, giving employees a fixed entry and exit point.

Caption: After clearing space

On November 14 of the same year, the project was completed. During this period, Bell Telephone Company didn’t lose a single day of work or service interruption.

Even more astonishing, the entire process was mostly manual labor, with only a small part powered by steam engines. Each move required precise calculations; uneven forces could cause the building to collapse.

Caption: The current Bell Building

In Conclusion

Even today, moving a building is no easy feat—especially without disrupting the work of its occupants. But people in that era managed to do it.

A key reason they could accomplish this was that the building was well-constructed, with a steel frame and brick structure, giving engineers the confidence to move it.

After the building was moved, Bell started constructing a new building. By 1932, a new seven-story building was completed on the original site, which was later expanded in the 1940s and 1960s. The moved building was decommissioned and demolished in 1963.

Although it ultimately met its end, the building and the engineers who moved it created a true miracle!