Wall Phones and Party Lines

Try to think of things that you constantly have on your person. I would bet that most people carry their cell phone with them at all times or at least have it near them. Stop and think about how far telecommunication technology has come in the last 100 years…even the last 10 years! Today cell towers are just about everywhere and even landlines reach across the world. These technologies allow most people to have their own personal communication line but pre-World War II it was common to see the party line where customers were connected to a local loop. In short, if one house was already on the party line the next house could pick up their end and eavesdrop or join in on the conversation of the first house and as many houses as were on the loop could do the exact same thing. The phone commonly used with a party line was a wall unit like the one from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection on display in the South Gallery.

This wall unit on display is actually a combination of pieces from different companies. The mouthpiece on the phone is from Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co. According to encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org, Milo G. Kellogg moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1870 and began working for Gray & Barton which became Western Electric. In the 1880s Kellogg left Western Electric and opened his own business in 1897. Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co had many name changes and was finally sold to Alcatel in the late 1980’s. Another part of the phone from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection, the ear piece, is from Leich Electric Co. Beginning as Eureka Electric Company based in Indiana and then Chicago, Illinois, they absorbed the Advance Electric Company in 1902 and moved to Genoa, Illinois. Sold to Cracraft-Leich Electric Co. in 1907, the company changed names to Leich Electric Co. in 1917. The company was then sold in the mid 1950’s but the name was still used throughout the early 1960s. As you can see, both companies whose pieces are on our phone were around for a number of years and saw many changes, not only in name but in technology.

Phone technology has come a long way from the crank-style wall phone on display in the South Gallery to the cell phone that most of us carry with us. Our cell phones are like our lifelines. What would we ever do without them? Just imagine living around 1917, around the time when our wall phone is from, and having to share a line with all of your neighbors. All I know is I am very thankful to live in the time that I do! To learn more about how people lived in the early 1900s in southeastern New Mexico come on down to the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame.