The Cal-Linn Building in Albuquerque, where computer megacompany Microsoft was founded, was designated to the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Park Service, which administers the program, announced the designation in an email on Sept. 4. The designation was effective on Sept. 1.
The Cal-Linn Building is at 6320 Linn Ave. NE, one block north of the Central Avenue alignment of Route 66 in Albuquerque. A plaque on a large stone commemorates the structure as the first headquarters for Microsoft.
Atlas Obscura has a good rundown on the building’s historical significance:
Paul Allen first visited Albuquerque to meet with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, who had developed the Altair 8800, the first microcomputer. Allen and Bill Gates had developed a version of BASIC, a programming language, tailored to MITS’s new machine. The name “Micro-Soft” was created by Allen as a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software.” (Later on, the hyphen was removed from the company name.) After their success with Altair BASIC, Bill Gates and Paul Allen officially incorporated Microsoft on April 4, 1975.
Gates and Allen found it difficult to find high-level programmers willing to move to Albuquerque. So, on January 1, 1979, they moved their headquarters to Bellevue, Washington.
The original office in New Mexico was largely ignored until 2006, when Microsoft came back to place a lovely plaque commemorating the founding of the company. Today there is no Microsoft here other than what might exist on the computers that operate out of this strip mall and the plaque.
Here’s a video about the building:
According to property records, the building was built in 1954. It’s not terribly distinctive in its architecture, but it absolutely is “significant in American history,” as the National Register puts it.
It should be noted that the building is in a pretty rough part of town, so travelers should take mental preparations if they want to visit the site.
The last tenant of the building was ArtHaus66, which apparently closed recently.
(Image of the first Microsoft headquarters and marker in Albuquerque by Wayne Hsieh via Flickr)