The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1923-03-16
FIRST PHONE Line
into DAVENPORT
When the Late Charlie Hopkins Start.
ed Long Distance System that now
Covers Eastern Washington.

To some readers ancient history
pertaining to eastern Washington, and
north central Washington
and the Big Bend, Is interesting read
ing. An article in the last issue OF the
Davenport Times-Tribune, going into
the particulars Of the establishment
of the first telephone line into Day.
export, was interesting reading to us
and awakened memories of a period
that dates back third of a century.
AS Davenport is on the eastern fringe
of the Big Bend and Lincoln county
not so far away that 1t cannot be call
ed a neignboring county the Incl
dent called up by the Davenport paper
may not be dull reading. The Times
Tribune account states that "the first
telephone was installed In store and
was a pay station. Few details Of tails
arrangement can be learned, and the
first system of which there Is much
information was built here from Spo-
kane some thirty years ago by tho
Bell Telephone company, which IN
STALLED a toll system"
The historian is in the main correct
although not entirely. The first tele-
phone station was located in build
ing almost directly across the street
from Charlie Mays bank, and II we
are not at fault in Oswald's furnt-
ture store. 1t was a long distance SER
vice, that is, long distance for those
days, as it. connected up only with
Spokane and no local phones had been
installed This was in the spring OF
1889. We can remember the circum-
stances we'll, II we have not all the
particulars at our fingers end, as the
first time we ever conversed through
q telephone over a few blocks long
was from Davenport to Spokane, and
was among the first to use the line.
Telephones were Just coming into use
in this northwest country at that time
and their possibilities for carrying
sound were little known or unders-
stood, and We don't know as the real
"why" sound can be carried over q
|slight copper wire great distances can
lbe any better explained to the under
tstanding of the ordinary layman today
than at the time of the first introduc.
ton of the marvellous convenience
Anyhow, we called up our better hall
lat Spokane and felt that we were man
lkeying with something creepingly un'
canny when her voice sounded as
though it was in an adjoining room
with the doors open. We could not &c,
it in our head how it was done, ant
must confess We are still wOoZy as Il
now voice can be carried hundred.
of miles over frail wire and thl
speaker recognized by the voice. How
, ever. that has nothing to do with th'
installation of a telephone line Int
Davenport, the subject that we start
ed out originally to consider.
The Times Tribune historian u
somewhat in error, If our memor'
= serves us right, as to who built tn
I, first Telephone line into Davenport
= although the man who did may hav
been an agent for the Bell compan
d. for the builder was the original foun
= der of the great telephone system tina
;, now reaches almost every communit
: in eastern Washington, no matter ho'
remote or isolated. The late Charlie
lP Hopkins, of Colfax, for years tl
- owner and publisher OF the Colfa
y Gazette was the founder OF the Ion
= distance system radating out OF Spt
:. kane. He grasped the idea that tneI
] in Inn0
:, and that the time was ripe Tor star
ling in to install the same. He can
lup from Colfax to Spokane to carr
Ibis plans into execution. At that tin
1.-THE government owned a Telegram
line from Spokane to Fort Spokane,
post on the Little Spokane river nor
u, of Davenport, and as the post wi
~ soon to be abandoned the war depar
III ment advertised the line for sale.
10 Hopkins saw in this line his oppo
Itunitv to introduce his first long dis
lance telephone service. That Tel
y graph line cost the government son
Thousands of dollars and as Mr.. Ho
lkins had no bidders to contend again
as no one wanted telegraph line IN
al ended out in the wilderness, ne "
ne able to purchase that line for only
ro few hundred dollars. 1t was ridl
ON ulous low sum. but it went like
10 government property that Is put up
's' public sale, like the accumulated fie'
ng of war ships will have to go since &C
at gress refused to make any provisi
40. for their use, for petty song. \
'ut Hopkins lost no time In placing .
ations at the few points along
old government line where there VI
or. people who might want to use sucl
modern institution, and while 1t CT
of not be said that the investment pr
,an ed lucrative from the first day
ber service was provided, 1t did pay IN
ter end and was the original starter
car the great ramification Of teleph'
eek lines that now network eastern We
me ington radlating out of Spokane.