Evening star., 1933-06-25

say that this movement is not in conjunction
with the Bell Telephone Co. nor is controlled
by it. They say that they are practical tele-
phone men. who see the possibilities of the
future for its use, greater perhaps, than is now
the case with the telegraph. The price paid for
the stock was very liberal, being 80. The stock
has been selling at 108 and no."
The headquarters then 1920 New York
avenue, now most likely covered BY the pres
ent Evans Building. and the first officers were:
President, Morris F. Tyler, whose residence
New Haven, Conn; vice president, A. G. Davis,
Baltimore, Md; secretary, Warren Choate All
Spruce street. LeDroit Park treasurer. Henry
D. Cooke, former Governor of the District of
Columbia, and H. B. Lytle, general manager
Boston, Mass.
At the time of the incorporation of the
present company there were only 896 telephones
in Washington and in the entire territory of
the local company which embraced a large
part of Maryland, there were but 2,354 speak
ing instruments which connected with
wires strung poles though in the first intro
duction of the telephone here the wires were
strung from roof to roof in the downtown
ton, but the system expanded poles had
to be reSorted to, and these poles, with their
numerous wires, proved of the city's
greatest problems, for the demand for tele-
phones increased. did the number of wires
until the condition not only became menacng
and dangerous but quite unsightly well. Some
OF the poles were as much 80 feet high
and one in particular that stood at the corner
of Twelfth street and Constitution avenue, near
the Mall was 88 feet in height and lowered
above all else around it.
1t soon became evident that some othcr
method of stringing wires would have to be
reSorted to. and so, i'll the Spring OF 1884
telephone wires first placed under ground
This system, which ran from the central
office on New York avenue up Fifteenth
street and Vermont avenue to l. street
S0- ca
and 60 loose wires some insulated and others
bare, threaded through porcelain cleats. These
loose wires were laid in a wooden b-x over the
cables and the box was filled with tar, which
most naturally expected to harden and
protect both cables and loose wires and to insu-
late the latter. But, alas, this tar like
many people, in that it did not stay put" and
although the cables worked fine, yet no voice
was ever heard over the loose wires.
The telephone company. like all other or
ganiZations, has not been without its troubles
and its loss in experiments doubt would run
into many thousands of dollars and SO il ~as in
this case, for the laying of wires in the method
referred to did not work out at all as expected
for soon as the hot weather set in the tar
began to soften and to through the pave
ment at low points in the street, and it is said
that for long time it necessary to cart
away loads of this tar from the streets almost
weekly. However, though imperfect as it proved
to be. yet just this limited stretch of under
ground construction constituted at the time
one-hfth of all the underground cable in the
United Stats.
IN 1887 the central Office moved to 619 Four
! teenth street northwest site now covered by
Federal American Bank. and this proved ade-
quate for the company's needs until 1900. when
A second central office, known as East" was
opened at % B street northwest. few months
afterward, in March, 1901, the West" central