Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past by David W. Jackson

Remember Telephone Exchanges?

Anywhere you drive today, it seems like three out of five motorists have one hand on the wheel with the other holding a tiny cell phone to their ear. (What ever happened to the 10 and 2 safety rule I learned in drivers education?) Younger citizens cannot remember a time without the cell phone.

Maybe it’s worth pulling the string tight between two empty soup cans again and making a long distance call to the summer of 1877 when Kansas Citians were first introduced to the telephone.

Lee D. Stanley, an avid electrician and night manager for the Kansas City office of the Western Union Telegraph Co. built Kansas City’s first telephone exchange--the first telephone exchange west of the Mississippi.

Colonel I. C. Baker, superintendent of the Telegraph Co., visited Stanley in Kansas City in 1877 and mentioned that his friend, Mr. Durant, had just begun canvassing St. Louis to begin installation of a telephone system. Baker invited Stanley to canvass Kansas City, and he agreed. Baker provided Stanley pamphlets, diagrams and rudimentary sample telephones (no dial, just a mouth- and ear-piece and a crank with a bell), and promised to provide the wire, instruments, and equipment if Stanley could get 20 subscribers.

Stanley had no challenge installing the exchange and making it work. However, he first had to persuade complacent citizens to overcome their view that the contraption was an extravagance, that a telephone would be useful, and most importantly to believe that the “thing would talk.”

Stanley’s canvass was slow going. His first successful converts were six subscribers working in the grain elevators. He then secured Armour & Co., Jacob Dold and Fowler Brothers packinghouses in the West Bottoms.

With nine subscribers, Stanley tried his prospects with the wholesale grocery men. After much persuasion, he secured four pledges contingent on Mr. Nathan Frank, another grocery man, to go in with them. Frank was dead against the idea until Stanley interrupted a meeting that Frank was having with a coffee salesman one day. The salesman chimed in, “We just had one put in our New York office, and it is a daisy.” He added, “They think a whole lot of it, too. It is a great convenience, and will revolutionize business methods in a short time. At least, that is what the old man says, and I suppose he knows.” That was enough for the stubborn Kansas City grocer. Frank ordered Stanley, “Young man, go right ahead and put in your trap. Put in one, two, three, or half a dozen—string them all over the place. Do it quickly, though, and get right out after it right now.”

Soon thereafter, the first telephone exchange was installed in a room eight by ten feet, boarded off in one corner of the Western Union operating room. The first telephone operators were three men (two day, and one night shift); women were not in public employment at this early date.

After connecting about a dozen subscribers they announced that they would connect the telephones on a certain evening with the Kansas Institute for the Blind, and that Colonel Miller, superintendent of the institution, would have the pupils sing into the phone. They coupled on the Blind Institute by using an old government telegraph wire between Kansas City and Leavenworth, which ran through Wyandotte and out by the institution. The concert was a memorable event in both Kansas City and Wyandotte. Every place that had a telephone, even the offices in the packinghouses, had its scores of visitors. Kansas Citians, previous disbelievers of the new contraption, were almost persuaded that they had witnessed a miracle.

According to a March 24, 1905, edition of the Blue Springs Herald, a franchise had just been secured to extend telecommunications to Oak Grove, bringing eastern Jackson County in close connection by wire.

Of course, many readers today will remember a time when you picked up the phone and were connected directly to an operator called “Central,” who would answer, “Number, please,” and put you through to your desired party. By that time, we had dial telephones, telephone numbers, exchanges (remember Harrison 1-1200? Westport 1-9999?), and “party lines…” all of which would warrant a feature article in itself.

Here’s a novel idea. Pick up the phone today and call us—preferably NOT while you are driving—if you’d like to donate telephone directories for years that we are missing (a list of what we have is online).

David W. Jackson is archivist for the nonprofit Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society’s Archives and Research Library at 112 W. Lexington Ave. Suite 103, Independence, MO, 64050. Explore deeper into local history topics like those presented in this column through the Jackson County Historical Society JOURNAL, a scholarly periodical delivered to Society members twice annually. For more information, or to donate historical materials, visit www.jchs.org, call (816) 252-7454, or e-mail info@jchs.org.

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