Bell Telephone: It wasn’t here, and then it was and now it’s not

 

Bell Telephone:

It Wasn’t Here

And Then It Was

And Now It’s Not

By Jack Coll

9-23-14

As work continues on the former Bell Telephone/Verizon Building located at Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street, I thought it might be fun to take a look back on Conshohocken’s history with the telephone and the phone exchange offices located in the borough. For residents and business owners in the surrounding area the dusty demolition of the former Verizon building that has made this a summer from hell with the noise and air borne dust and dirt promises to be a beautiful building for all of us to be proud of when we get to walk thru the front doors of the finished product.

It was a cold January day back in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell signed and notarized his patent application for the telephone, not a real smart move on his part when you consider no one had a phone, and it would be likely that if this phone thing got off the ground most American citizens would not be able to afford a phone for private use. Despite that on March 7, 1876 Bell’s United States patent No. 174,465 for telephones was granted.

Just two years later on January 28, 1878, in the storefront of the Boardman Building in New Haven, Connecticut, the first commercial telephone exchange in the world was opened with 21 subscribers. A guy by the name of George W. Coy designed and built the world’s first switchboard for commercial use. Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell’s lecture at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven on April 27, 1877.

During a time in our country’s history when laborers were making pennies a day the $1.50 per month subscribers fee for the use of a phone was a little pricey, mostly physicians, police stations, the towns post office and a few wealthy residents were all that could afford a phone subscription.

When the invention of the telegraph came along Conshohocken was one of the first communities in the county to utilize the telegraph due to the borough’s railroads. An office of the Philadelphia and Pottsville Telegraph Company was established in this borough and commercial messages were accepted for transmission along with the railroad message business. Later the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company built lines through this district and the growing industries demanded greater telegraph facilities and the company opened an office in Conshohocken.

When the telephone was put into practical use in the early days Conshohocken established the first exchange at the drug store of James W. Harry located at 37 Fayette Street in the fall of 1883, Annie Tiernan was hired by manager Harry to operate the borough’s first exchange. The exchange had twelve subscribers including The Conshohocken Weekly Recorder, the Plymouth Rolling Mill, The Tradesmen’s National Bank, The John Wood Manufacturing Company, the John Wood and Brother Company, The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, Conshohocken Worsted Mills, Evan C. Jones and Company, William Heywood Offices, Henry Cresson residence, John Wood Sr. residence, and John Wood Jr. residence.

In the early 1880’s Conshohocken had more than 4,000 residents, by 1890, just seven years after installing the exchange the phone company listed Conshohocken as having 31 telephones in the borough. In the early 1890’s Mr. Harry moved his drug store up Fayette Street to the Reiff Building located on the corner of First Avenue and Fayette Street, (the current location of Jimmy John’s with Freaky Fast Delivery) the exchange was located in the back of the drug store until 1902 when the phone operations were moved to a small room on the second floor of the drug store and by 1900 William Neville who worked for Mr. Harry became the second phone exchange operator as part of his duties. However the phone business grew rapidly, in 1900 Conshohocken had 64 subscribers but within a decade by 1910, the borough had nearly 700 phones. The phone company was also rapidly changing, 1902 saw the passing of the old “turn the crank” system which was a bell on each telephone instrument box which had to be rung to get a connection. It was also in 1902 when the phone exchange was moved from the back of the drug store to a small room on the second floor of the building. Miss Laura Wagner was appointed operator of this larger exchange and a long distance telephone call accomplished between Conshohocken and Pittsburg. This became the talk of the town for weeks. By the end of World War One several employees including Helen DeHaven, who later married Jimmy Traill worked the second floor switchboard as the phone company continued to grow at a rapid pace.

By 1925, as the borough of Conshohocken turned 75 years old the borough had 1650 telephones, requiring 25 full time operators to take over the entire second floor of the Reiff Building and had telephone executives thinking about moving to a bigger quarters.

In the spring of 1929, rumors began circulating that Bell Telephone had purchased one of the premier properties along Fayette Street with the intentions of tearing it down to build a new, more modern exchange to better serve its more than 2,000 phone customers. In May of 1929, those rumors were confirmed that the property of Solomon Laverty, located on the northeast corner of Fayette Street at Ninth Avenue including the mansion, with a frontage of 75 feet on Fayette street with the property extending back to Harry Street had been purchased by a realtor who represented the Bell Telephone Company. Residents at the time were extremely upset with businesses moving up Fayette Street and making further invasions of the residential section of the borough. However residents were relieved that rumors of a gasoline service station going onto the property were false.

Following two years of construction at a cost of $200,000 the two story red brick building located at East Ninth Avenue and Fayette Street was ready to open for service February 16, 1932. Bell Telephone electricians spent months wiring the new telephone exchange building for 25 operators to handle the 2,344 telephones hooked up within the service district including Conshohocken, West Conshohocken, Spring Mill, Gulph Mills, Wood Lane, Plymouth Meeting, Barren Hill and the section near Miquon.

When the new exchange building opened in 1932 a number of high tech services were also put into service. One of the new service improvements was directly evident to the telephone user in Conshohocken known as “audible ringing,” it enabled the person making the call to hear the bell ringing at the called telephone. Through the improvements made at the new facilities, toll, or inter-town calls between Conshohocken and Norristown, and other points was handled more expeditiously than ever. Yet another modern marvel put into use was the new “howler.” This siren-like device is applied to a telephone whose receiver has failed to be replaced, and notifies the subscriber by its howl-like sound that the telephone needs attention. Alerting the customer that the phone is off the hook before several hours of times might elapse. There is also the invention of the phone for hearing impaired to which can aid them in their everyday activities and business venture.

Mrs. Kathryn Sullivan of Alden Pa. was the chief operator in 1932, Conshohocken residents who worked at Bell Telephone as an operator that same year included Marion Sauter, 411 West Eleventh Avenue; Mrs. Frances Nobel, Miquon; Anna Conley, 207 Ford Street, West Conshohocken; Martha Blong, 109 Cedar Avenue, West Conshohocken; Mary Barret, 815 Fayette Street; Claire Brown, 223 Ford Street, West Conshohocken; Helen Maguire, 503 Ford Street, West Conshohocken; Teresa McIntyre, 225 Spring Mill Avenue; Hannah Coulston, 446 West Tenth Avenue; Clara Wannop, 324 West Eleventh Avenue; Vera Meyers, 373 East Hector Street; Hyacinth Wtulich, 212 Moir Avenue, West Conshohocken; Ida Neil, 916 East Hector Street; Margaret Butler, 100 block of Forrest Street; Gertrude McShane, 29 Front Street, West Conshohocken; and Mildred John, 153 East Ninth Avenue among other local employees.

Over the next 25 years Bell Telephone continued to expand their operations in and around Conshohocken. In 1957 the Bell Company completed the building on North Lane which at the time was built to house what they called the new Taylor Central office where Bell workers installed the modern dial switching equipment. The company completely changed to dial operations in the summer of 1958.

In the late fall of 1957, the Bell Company announced the intended construction of the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania’s new one point five million dollar accounting center to be constructed at West Fourth Avenue and Fayette Street. The new two story building measured approximately 90 feet by 240 feet, and was the first metal-walled building in the company’s eastern Pennsylvania area. It was also announced that the Conshohocken building would be the first in the area featuring a radiant acoustic ceiling designed for comfortable air conditioning.

The new building was to be constructed of fire-resistant reinforced concrete foundations, frame and floors. The exterior walls of the basement would be built of concrete and masonry construction with face brick and aluminum projection type windows in the sections above ground level.

The metal walls of the first level and second floors were composed of an exterior panel finished in porcelain enamel and an interior panel finished in dull enamel with panels supported by a structural steel frame erected between concrete columns. The concrete columns were to be enclosed in the metal wall with a fluted aluminum plaster and windows in the wall were also made of aluminum.

The first and second floors were to house the various accounting units which were separated by metal and glass bank type partitions. Each floor was also equipped with an attractive retiring room and lounge and the basement had a main lounge and cafeteria. A parking lot for all the driving employees was being installed for about 60 cars. The building was also advertised as an active Bomb Shelter for residents of the borough. The Cold War was in full force at the time of construction and in case all the borough’s children who had practiced so hard at climbing under their desk at school or running into the hallway to line up along the wall with their head between their knees, well they would have someplace to go in the summertime!

The new telephone building was built on a lot that was previously part of the Jones property. Horace Jones, a former President of the First National Bank of Conshohocken had lived in the mansion once located on the corner of West Fifth Avenue and Fayette Street. The mansion that was formerly owned by members of the Wood family and members of the Perot family was demolished in 1954 to make way for the Philadelphia National Bank. The mansion had extensive gardens and walkways that extended from the back of the house down to Fourth Avenue, going from Fayette Street to Forrest Street. The telephone company purchased the lot of land that formerly served as the mansion’s gardens.

The $1,500,000 building hailed locally as a modern marvel opened its doors for business in late 1958 and for the next 50 years served the company as an accounting office. The office introduced many new components over the years including computers the size of a small ship. Over the half century of operation in Conshohocken the Bell Company employed thousands of local residents who managed to raise their families thanks to the jobs offered but the Bell Telephone Company Building at Fourth Avenue. Also Bell Telephone served this community as the beginning of the borough’s transition from fading industrial era to what we see in our lower end today. I’m not quite sure residents today understand that Bell Telephone was this borough’s largest employer of white collar jobs not so long ago. At its peak Bell housed more than 300 employees at Fourth Avenue and the spin-off of dollars going back into this town helped save our local economy throughout the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Even after the borough of Conshohocken purchased the building in the 2007, Bell Telephone now called Verizon continued to rent the building paying the borough nearly one and a half million dollars back in rent over the next several years.

The building sat vacant for the past eight years or so, while plans to renovate it were an on-going discussion. The original plan was to combine the borough hall operations, the Conshohocken Police Department, with possible rental space on the top floor. With some minor changes, that’s exactly what we’ll see when the project is completed.

No one will be able to argue that when finished, what will always be the “Verizon” building, to an ageing generation, will be beautiful. The beautiful facility located smack in the middle of this borough on our main street will serve generations to come. Our police department, which has been operating out of a converted barn over the past 50 years, will have a much more modern headquarters.

Bell Telephone/Verizon has had an interesting history in Conshohocken over the past one hundred and twenty five years, that history will never go away, a history the phone company can be proud of, and a history that Conshohocken can be proud to have been a part of. The phone company has brought cutting edge technology to this borough, but more importantly brought jobs to our residents, and this community was built on the backs of industries that took a chance on Conshohocken.

Conshohocken today is once again the place to be, the place to meet for a good luncheon, no make that a great luncheon. In the 1980’s the local Chamber of Commerce had a slogan, “Conshohocken Means Business,” and today it truly does mean business. Business starts with our borough representatives, and spreads to our other local leaders, and that in turn spreads to our business owners, and from there the pride swells in our residents.

With all that being said, welcome to the greatest community in the United States, Conshohocken Pennsylvania.