Fun With Historical Telephones!
You want to know something really neat about working on 1920s street at Fort Edmonton Park? The Alberta Government Telephone Office.
It's a reconstruction of a telephone exchange from St. Paul, so its switchboards are a bit small compared to what Edmonton would have had in the 1920s. In fact, Edmonton would have had a mostly automated system by this time, with a handful of friendly female operators on the line to act as a telephone directory, tell you the correct time so you can set your watch, give you sports scores, or even provide wake-up calls or call you back to remind you to take your pie out of the oven.
Anyway, I can go on and on about this place, but instead, why don't you have a photograph of myself at the working switchboard? I'm wearing the microphone around my neck. On my (non-visible) ear I have an earpiece.
There are over a dozen working phones in the park - more as of this week as more are repaired by an awesome pair of retired Telus employees. I can essentially call any time period in the park that would have had a phone - so, uh, not the Fort (1846), but five or so phones on 1885, a few more than that on 1905 street... and maybe (soon?) two more on 1920s street... including one public telephone booth in the same building as I am. I can make the phone ring as people come in. I enjoy surprising children, especially.
These sort of telephone exchanges were actually still in use into the 1960s and even the 1970s. I often have older people from rural areas of Alberta who tell me they once worked part-time in a place like this. These systems aren't so far into the distant past as all that!
It's a reconstruction of a telephone exchange from St. Paul, so its switchboards are a bit small compared to what Edmonton would have had in the 1920s. In fact, Edmonton would have had a mostly automated system by this time, with a handful of friendly female operators on the line to act as a telephone directory, tell you the correct time so you can set your watch, give you sports scores, or even provide wake-up calls or call you back to remind you to take your pie out of the oven.
Anyway, I can go on and on about this place, but instead, why don't you have a photograph of myself at the working switchboard? I'm wearing the microphone around my neck. On my (non-visible) ear I have an earpiece.
There are over a dozen working phones in the park - more as of this week as more are repaired by an awesome pair of retired Telus employees. I can essentially call any time period in the park that would have had a phone - so, uh, not the Fort (1846), but five or so phones on 1885, a few more than that on 1905 street... and maybe (soon?) two more on 1920s street... including one public telephone booth in the same building as I am. I can make the phone ring as people come in. I enjoy surprising children, especially.
These sort of telephone exchanges were actually still in use into the 1960s and even the 1970s. I often have older people from rural areas of Alberta who tell me they once worked part-time in a place like this. These systems aren't so far into the distant past as all that!