Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-16
A REMARKABLE STORY
L.. /. w. ZietloW's Struggle in
South Dakota. ~ ~ = :. :
INDEPENDENT TELEPHONE
Now Controls Most of the Business in
the State. =
THE DEVICE OF A CONVICT
Perfected and Prevented the "Trust"
From wiping Out the Little
Independent Concern.
THE DEVICE OF A CONVICT


ABERDEEN. S. D.. september Is, 1906.
/ The telephone situation in South Dakota
Is more novel than that in any other state
Of the Union. The industry's uncrowned
King is an independent. and is entitled to
fame because of the peculiar circumstances
under which 1t assembled the throne and the
1emarkahle grit of the man who engineered
that ascension. With the story of these
things another is naturally nnked-that Of
"a convict who, while at work in the Min
Nesota state peniientiary. perfected the tel
ephouic device that prevented the trust
from wiping cut the little Independent con-
Germ as 1t wiped out nearly all others in
uhe United States back in the eighties.
Lee it be known at the outset that ]. l..
~. Z:rtlow is the man who defeated the
gnauy efforts of the Bell company to control
fhe telephone business OF South Dakota. 1t
was he WHO brought the invention of the
Minnesota convict out onto the plains and
GUrsed Ii through as many severe cases of
fruuble collie as ever fell to the lot of one
infant industry. In fact. he. with his fam
dly. were almost martyrs TO the business
(which they had taken up: but it's all over
now. and Mr.. Zietiow is enjoying his wealth
Some say he comes pretty near being a mil
lionalre. and his riches are growing stead
lily. lie has about 500 miles of pole lines.
upon which are strung 1000 miles OF teie-
phone circuits He has eightyfour ex-
changes and employs 500 persons. The ex-
Deust. account OF this concern last month
amounted to $1,000 The mai -enance ac-
count was outside of this.
AZ was said that "he" has all this. OF
course there is a corporation and number
of stockholders but Mr.. Z!etow runs the
corpora ton, just as he did all the time II
was lighting for life when absorption by
Che trust threatened 1t. and he owns nearly
all the stock. The remainder is in the
hand of South Dakotans, and not cent
of dividends goes into musty vaults IN the
east This is the proud boast OF Zietiow
and every other South Dakotan
Little to the Telephone Trust.
The telephone trust is enjoying but a
fragment of the crust of the South Da-
kota pie No subsidiary company of Alex
ander Graham Bell. of the interests
commonly associated with his name. has
a Iodgment in this state save in the ex-
IRENE southeast portion where South Da-
kota dips down to touch Iowa and Ne
braska and in the Black Hills district
where the Bell people got in at an early
date. All the rest of the state, including
That vast empire of prairie that rolls
through central South Dakota. and all the
counties of the north. and the transmits
eUur region which even now is being
opened and made ready for the homes OF
thousands of new settlers is the heritage
OF the Independent telephone operator and
manufacturer
u Was IN the early eighties that the Beil
people took possession of that fringe ot
settlement in southeastern South Dakota.
All the rest, except the gold country in the
Black Hilis, was sort of an unknown re-
eion and regarded next to valueless by
msny intelligent persons AT about the
same time the land hungry started move
meat that eliminated in central Dakota -
name then commonly given to all the
vast middle ground of the giant territory.
Three years later at Aberdeen Mr.. Ziet
1ow. whose capital was a natural bent for
electrical studies and operations and whose
faith was great that he saw all the lit
tie communities of struggling pioneers