The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1923-03-16
Mankato T telephone Company
Celebrated Its Anniversary

pressed q desire to test II. So the
emperor was placed at one OF the
instruments and DR.. Bells assistant
was sent to the other instrument In
another part OF the building. The
emperor heard the voice Of the as
sistant and he exclaimed, MY God,
1t talks. The judges then moved the
exhibit to a place OF honor and from
that time on many thousands re-
viewed It with wonder and amaze
ment. At the close OF the exposition,
DR.. Bell took his instruments back
to Boston and began work on the
problem Of securing money to de-
velop it to build and install ex-
changes.
Difficulties Of Financing
"He had great difficulty In inter-
esting financers and bankers In his
project. They wished him well but
declared his project a hazardous en-
terprtse that never would amount to
much. The instrument was only a
plaything for rich people; they had
| too many sure investments where
their principal was safe and the in
terest sure. So development was
slow in those years, but little by lit
| tie switchboards were built and tele-
phones installed. The telephone ex-
changes OF those days were very
different from our modern eX-
changes. They were small affairs
about fifteen inches square and could
be hung on the wall like q picture.
When Mrs. Smith wanted to call DR..
Jones, she would ring out over her
telephone which rang bell at the
switchboard. The operator, a boy
would answer, find out who Mrs.
Smith wanted and tell her to wait q
minute. He would then call DIR. Jones
Land IL he reached him, would say,
"Wait a minute, Doc, Mrs. Smith
wants you, and then he would con
meet the two lines together and
when he wanted to know when they
had finished, he must disconnect the
lines and ask IL they were through.
Such a crude affair provoked many
arguments which the patience of
BOYS could not Withstand.
IF anyone sassed the operator or
told him that he had not rang a
party, he was very likely to make an
| appointment with the grieved party
behind Browns barber shop, and
leave the switchboard to keep the
appointment. This procedure spelled
/ the doom of boy operators and 1t
was not long before girls were in
troduced into the business as opera
tors, where they by reason OF their
| disposition have remained ever
since that period.
| Progress Was Made
From 1876 to 1886 considerable
progress was made but 1t was not
until 1886 that the telephone was
considered commercially practical.
With that realization came great de-
mands for telephones. Every city
and village wanted service and the
Bell Telephone Company, who had
field to itself, found that it was un
able to take care OF the demands for
service
"As a result independent COM
| panies began springing UP. This was
known as the Competitive era and
continued thirty years. During this
period the use OF the telephones
grew by leaps and bounds. Many
manufacturers entered the field and
/ improvements came thick and fast
| Grounded line systems gave way to
common return systems and they in
turn gave way to full metallic lines
! systems. In the larger cities the
magnetic telephones and switch
boards gave way to central energy
telephones and switchboards, the
large s, single Office exchanges to null
Automatic Is Invented
| while these improvement were
taking place the story is told of a
Missouri business man who went to
his office one morning, hung up his
Prince Albert coat and two gallon
hat, secured his paper cooked his
feet on his desk and began to read.
This man was an undertaken, sud
denly his attention was attracted to
a death notice of friend who had
died and the funeral had been
to the conclusion that his friends
! had tried to get him by telephone
and the operator had given the call
| to his competitor, and as a result he
lost the business He few into rage
called the operator and accused her
of giving his call to the competitor.
| The operator protested her innocen-
ce, but he would not believe her,
! slammed the receiver on the hook
and paced the floor.
! Gets Idea of Automatic
Suddenly thought came to him.
Why not build telephone system
which would not require operators.
The more he thought the more he
resolved that he could and would
build such a system. This mans
name was Elmore Stronger. He be-
gan to ask questions about the tele-
| phone switchboard and to watch the
| operators answer calls. He noticed
! that there were ten rows of sub
scribers' lines, ten to a row before
each operator To establish a con-
nection with seventy five, the op-
orator would lift a plug to- the
seventh row and to the fifth in the
row, plugging in to make the con-
nection with seventy five.
! Experiments With Paper Collars
: In those days men wore paper
collars. They could be had at any
| dry goods store twelve for twenty
five cents, packed in a round paste
board box. 1t is said that Mr.. Strow-
| ger wore them. One day while sit
ting at his desk thinking of his tele-
phone system he pulled out drawer
| in his desk and took therefrom one
OF these boxes, emptying it Of the
| collars 1t contained. On his desk he
had paper of pins He took the
pins and one by one stuck them
from the outside towards the center
until he had ten rows of ten each on
one half of this circular box. These
one hundred pins represented one
hundred subscriber lines. Then he
took a lead pencil and held it out to
the center Of this box in front of the
! pins. Then he soliloquized as fol-