The Museum of Telephone History features many different telephone models and related items for display. It makes a fun family outing, school field trip or is an invaluable addition to any sightseeing tour itinerary.
Archives at Edmonton Public Libraries include telephone directories and photos documenting Edmonton phone use history. Furthermore, our collection features technical manuals and books about telecom.
Museum of Independent Telephony
This museum showcases both the social and technical significance of telephone networks through working equipment that offers tangible evidence of an evolving technology. Additionally, this museum honors and recognizes the creativity, craftsmanship, and industry found within telecommunication communities through educational programs, exhibits, and special events.
Once Alexander Graham Bell’s patent expired, more than 6,000 independent telephone companies (commonly known as Independents) sprang up across the nation. This museum celebrates their history through old switchboards and linemen’s tools used by linemen; pole insulators; etc.
This museum is well worth a visit; however, as with all free museums and non-profits it requires support to remain operational. If possible, consider making a donation so they may continue preserving and displaying historical artifacts for future generations – thank you! Located at 412 South Campbell Street in Abilene Kansas; phone: 785-928-8500
Roseville Telephone Company Museum
Roseville Telephone Company Museum houses one of the nation’s finest collections of antique phones and memorabilia, its displays highlighting more than a century of communication technology in Roseville as well as globally. Open to visitors year-round.
At its 106 Vernon Street location in Downtown Roseville, the museum exhibits and displays that show how people used to communicate between one another. Their collection includes old-fashioned upright phones called candlesticks as well as early wooden wall phones and magneto switchboards as well as colored glass insulators and telephone booths.
The Museum is the perfect spot for family outings, school field trips and city sightseeing tours. Operated by volunteers and free to visit, its staff are dedicated to sharing our telephone industry history and answering any queries that arise from visitors.
Oklahoma Museum of Telephone History
Oklahoma City hosts this museum dedicated to telephone history dating from 1900 through today, including switchboards, crank wall phones and decorator phones from 1900 onward. Also displayed here is a collection of tools used by their ancestors as well as hands-on items for children.
The museum houses many historic artifacts, such as a 1905 switchboard and vintage cable car buggy from its collection, as well as antique phone equipment like 1905 rotary dial phones and wind-up wall phones from its collection of antique phone equipment. Furthermore, there are various historical documents and photographs.
The museum boasts many online collections available to the public. Notable examples are Civil War soldiers’ personal narratives and interviews conducted with Oklahomans during the 1930s as well as over 200 manuscript collections on Native Americans from their manuscript collections complemented by maps and posters – collections which historians will find invaluable.
Hello Montreal!
Hello Montreal! is an insightful exhibition which takes visitors back through 140 years of advances in telephony. Utilizing Bell’s extensive historical collection, Hello Montreal! shows how telephone has revolutionized communication.
At this museum, visitors will discover an astonishing collection of vintage phones spanning 1895 up to 2015 – from magneto switchboards used at Montreal exchanges around 1895, all the way through a massive battery switchboard seating over 100 operators! Additionally, visitors can see Princess phones first launched in 1960 (some even lit up), along with modern Vista 350 phones which display caller names.
There are a range of activities designed to engage children at this exhibit, such as trying their luck as switchboard operators from the 1920s – by connecting as many calls as possible! It also honours generations that contributed to developing telephony through pole erecting, cable burying and developing equipment design – providing visitors with an exciting glimpse of Canadian invention and urban communications history.
