March 1, 2018
This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
Today’s
story is about an interesting day at telephone central. In 1914 and for some time later, “Central” was
the term for the operator (who was almost always a lady). She answered to serve telephone customers,
who wanted to place a call. There was no
instant dialing and there was no “face-time” as we have on our phones
today. Calls had to go through a central
location. I also remember that there
were “party lines” in which people shared a phone line and could easily, but
also inappropriately, listen in on the
conversations of their neighbors until one or both parties realized there were
others listening to a conversation that were not invited. Anyway, here is the rest of today’s story
from February of 1914.
The “Daily
Union” newspaper reported that the young ladies at the telephone central
station had one of the most interesting times of the year, the day before. It seems that a number of people came into
the office to talk long distance on the new line. When they found out the cost to use the new
line, they took up to an hour of “Centrals” time trying to beat down the
price. This happened several times
during the day and the young ladies were exasperated over it. One of them suggested that they might in the
future have a telephone sale and knock one cent off the price in order to
satisfy those who want to telephone for less.
The date of the sale could be announced after the dry goods sales in
town had finished. When the sale was
scheduled to occur, a carload of operators could be brought in to wait on the
bargain hunters. The cut rate would be
five cents to Kansas City and nine cents to Abilene.”
Well… this
makes me wonder why it would cost less to call Kansas City than Abilene when
Kansas City is further away? I also
wonder if such a sale ever occurred?
Well, that’s
our story today on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical
Society.
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