The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

First Phone System Installed Here In 1903

I t was 1877 that Alexander Graham Bell's invention was first installed as a commercial venture. The first successful demonstrations device was in Havana Cuba in 1849!

In Waitsburg, the first telephone was installed in 1887. The first rural telephone system was installed in 1903, 4 W. Morgan was Central (John White's Paper).

I couldn't believe there were telephones that early in Waitsburg! Laidlaw's book monitor the telephone office located between Mae Combes and the bank -operated by Tina, one of Lewis Cox's children and then, "Dr. Butler's office." That was in 1900.

In our 21st Century of 4G systems, Smart phones and 24/7 interconnectivity, those years seem ancient.

I was reading Sam McLeod's book about his experience when he moved to the Walla Walla area near Lowden and started building a farm house. His story as told in his latest experience in the book, "Blue Walla" by Sam McLeod.

He called the phone company and said, "We needed to get phone service at our new place."

They sent "Stan" from the telephone office.

And Stan says, "Because you and me are about to have a very unpleasant conversation. I'm standing here looking off into the next state through those binoculars and haven't seen the first sign of a telephone pole!"

Without wanting to, I was starting on a mission to learn all about the availability of cell phone service in remote places -wireless internet beamed in from far away mountaintops, and something called "Voice over Internet Protocol." "Cell phones did not seem to be the answer."

I started with John. He said everything hinged on whether we had "line of sight" to the Internet service tower.

He apparent ly saw something that I couldn't see.

He handed me his binoculars and pointed -to the spot way off ---

With the binoculars you could barely make out what looked like a flagpole that had fallen into disuse.

"You're in luck," says John.

So you're telling me what looks like a flagpole - is going to send and receive my email."

Sure enough, when we got the barn built and the farmhouse all enclosed --- they hooked up what looked like a large dinner plate up on the side of the barn.

I plugged in the princess phone and heard a regular dial tone. "Wow!"

"We could talk in a normal voice and communicate with anybody on the planet."