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