Telephone Historical Centre offers visitors an interactive telephone museum experience. A popular spot for school field trips and sightseeing tours alike.
Docents (both current and retired ED TEL employees who volunteer their time as docents) provide visitors with a knowledgeable tour of the exhibits, featuring working operator switchboards, outside plant displays featuring poles, lines and splicing tools, crank wall phones and novelty phones.
Exhibits
This museum, housed in a restored 1920s cotton warehouse, showcases an extensive selection of old phones, switch equipment and other telecommunication devices from Alexander Graham Bell’s time through to novelty Princess phones and flip phones – providing both an enjoyable and educational experience for visitors.
This non-profit museum was established by former employees of ED TEL to preserve the history of telecommunications technology. The exhibits trace Alexander Graham Bell’s gallows frame phone all the way through today’s mobile devices.
The Museum offers a recreation of an old telephone exchange, displays of glass insulators and antique phones as well as replicas of early telephones such as Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Telephone and Thomas A. Watson’s Thumper Phone from their original manufacturing dates; plus the first phone imported into Edmonton by Dominion Telegraph Agent Alexander Taylor himself! Ideal for group tours, school field trips and family outings alike – make this your destination of choice today.
Education
Few inventions have had as profound an effect on human communication as the telephone. Its journey from humble origins to powerful communication tool is well documented across museums and historical centres worldwide.
Telephone history centres often offer interactive learning experiences for children and adults to experience the development of technology first-hand. These museums can make excellent family outings, school field trip destinations or sightseeing tour stops; many museums also host educational workshops about telecom technology.
Telephone Workshops is a development project to evaluate the effects of a sustained STEM style education program that encourages young people to become engineers. Evaluation involves gathering multi-year formative evaluation data on participants’ engineering interest, knowledge of electric theory as a mathematical ratio, taking apart and wiring components, knowledge of historic technical events and semiconductor technology as well as its scalability within multiple communities and schools; donations help keep our museum open to the public.
Events
The Museum offers special events and tours, as well as opportunities for group tours of our equipment to help students explore communication history and development.
Explore and appreciate one of North America’s largest collections of telephones, equipment and memorabilia with us – an enjoyable family outing, school field trip or great addition to a sightseeing tour! We look forward to having you visit.
The Museum offers an engaging learning experience from Alexander Graham Bell’s simple box-shaped telephone to today’s sleek cellular phones – there is no better way to discover and experience communication history! Instead of just viewing museum exhibits without getting involved themselves, visitors to the National Telephone Museum can sit at a manual switchboard and act as operator to connect a call for themselves. The Museum features working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches, outside plant displays featuring poles, cables and splicing equipment, as well as a catalogued telephone-related reference library. Volunteers are key to the Museum’s success, aiding with tours, youth activity tables and cataloguing artifacts (many volunteers possess formal artifact handling or library/archives experience). Museums Alberta recognizes us as an official member.
Contact
Dependent upon where their center is situated, visitors can witness an array of telephones and equipment – including working switching gear – on display. This museum houses one of the finest collections of telecommunications technology in the country: wooden box phones, candlestick phones and classic rotary phones are among its exhibits; additionally it also contains many cases filled with Edison insulators in various shapes and sizes.
This museum was established by retired employees of ED TEL in 1987 and first located at an historic Old Strathcona telephone exchange building before moving to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in Central Edmonton. Knowledgeable docents – current and retired ED TEL employees volunteering their time – guide visitors through its displays of phone equipment while explaining how various pieces work.
This fun attraction provides a wonderful experience for kids and adults of all ages alike, making a visit to Edmonton’s Telephone Historical Centre an integral part of any tour itinerary.
