Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-30

n EAT TO the anniversary OF Alex
NJ ander Graham Bells invention
of the telephone instrument, no
indL strial birthday is more interesting
and none perhaps is more important
than are the birthdays of the first tele-
phone line and the first switchboard,
which fall tc ether about now. Thirty
years ago in April a single wire was
strung from the factory in Boston
where Bells instruments were made
to the manufacturers residence in
Somerville two or three miles out in
the suburbs. This was the first tele-
phone line ever constructed-the primal
ancestor of L1s seven and half mil
lion miles of wire which now connect
more than three million subscribers
stations in the Bell system. At the
beginning of the summer of 1877, soon
after the erection of the first telephone
line. several wires radiating from a
common center were for the first time
interconnected by means of crude
device which, through evolution, has
become the huge, intricate, highly per-
fected switchboard of today.
Next to the telephone itself, the
switchboard Is the most marvellous and
most necessary feature of the commun-
icating system. Remarkable engineer
ing feats have been performed in build
ing the lines. local and long distance.
Broad rivers have been spanned or
undertake.; lofty mountainsides have
been scaled, rock and sand, preclpice
and quagmire, storm and flood, all nave
presented seemingly insurmountaple
obstacles which, in their turns, nave
been overcome, sometimes with most
Ingenious skill. The work of the line
builders has been the most spectacu-
lar, no doubt, burt it would. after all,
have counted for but little were 1t not
allied with the inventive genious tnat
devised the means of joining into one
any two of the myriads of copper
threads by which voices are carried far
and near.
The earliest attempt at interconnec-
ton on the general plan OF the eX-
change as understood today was made
in Boston in May, 1877. There was then
operating in that city company when
nrovided electrical burglar alarm serv-
ice. 1t had a central station wnere the
alarm signals were located, connected
by wires with the premises OF us va
rious subscribers, who were emery
bankers and merchants. Arrangements
were made for the use of these INES
and the central station as an expert
mental telephone exchange. Telephones
were attached to five of the circuits
three in banks, one In the oHlce OF
firm of bankers, and one IN the oiIlce
of the manufactures OF the instruments
-and repeatedly the wires were so con-
nected in the alarm company mead
quarters that conversations were car
ried on between the several subscribers.
The crude apparatus used for max
ing these connections could hardly pc
called a switchboard, though 1t served,
in its small way the same purpose as
does the largest modern exchange. But
It contained the germ of great IDEA
1t started experimentation, as the re-
suit of which there was put into op-
erat IN the following January real
telephone central office.
Down in Bridgeport, Conn.,, there was
a private telegraph system, private
telegraphy being sort of social rad
at that time; and among the enthusl-
asts connected with it was Thomas b.
Doolittle, already the inventor OF many
ingenious devices and soon to be the
nrodIcer of many more. Mr.. Doo-
little attached the telephone 1nstru-
ment to his society telegraph wires
modified the switchboard through
which the lines had been connected SO
that it could be manipulated by an
operator, and attached signal bells to
all the curcuits as a means OF calling
the operators attention. There were
twenty subscribers served by this pi-
oneer switchboard; nowadays there is
hardly a single block in business
street of any American town that does
not contain as many telephones as
twenty. and there are plenty of COM
merciai offices and industrial plants in
every large city which have rivate
switchboards of their own serving
more than twenty stations" on one
floor of building.
In the same month that Mr.. Doollttie
put his switchboard into operation the
first fully equipped commercial tele-
phone exchange ever established ror
public or general service was opened
in New Haven, Conn. 1t was success
from the start and no sooner was the
success of the New Haven undertake
ing apparent than other large cities be-
gan installing central offices. The pos
sibilities thus given the telephone in
creased its popularity enormously, in
spite of the dc Ibts and hesitation near
ly every one showed in the early days.
June 30 1877, there were 230 telephones
in regular use-230 telephones in the
whole world thirty years ago today,
where now there are upward of 7,000,-
900. Within month after the number
had more than trebled; within two
months 1t had been multiplied by six,
and by the spring of 1880, when the
American Bell Telephone company
the first concern to attempt the unifii-
cation of the telephone system which