This museum provides an ideal venue for exploring old phones, switch equipment and other communications devices from decades past. Their collection includes working Panel and Step-by-Step automatic branch exchanges as well as outside plant displays that feature poles, cables, splicing tools and antique phones.
This renovated 1920s cotton warehouse houses an extensive collection of telecommunications memorabilia. Exhibits include an exact replica of the phone used to announce President McKinley’s assassination as well as novelty telephones from the 1950s.
Opening Hours
The museum features an impressive variety of telephones dating back to their invention by Alexander Graham Bell in 1878. Ranging from rotary dial and party line phones to military field telephones and even replicas of McKinley phones that reported his assassination, there’s sure to be something here that’ll fascinate both children and adults.
Communications Technology Museum brings history alive through interactive exhibits and displays, along with hosting special events throughout the year.
The museum boasts working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches, antique telephones and switchboards, outside plant displays with poles, cables and splicing equipment as well as an impressive cataloged telecommunications reference library – making this an invaluable history lesson! Open Tuesday to Friday; timed entry tickets must be purchased either online or by phone prior to visiting.
Guided Tours
Calling home, whether that means Philadelphia or Florida, feels like making magic happen. Even more so when seeing some of the equipment behind it all – an experience only further enhanced at The Telephone Museum where visitors can explore hands-on exhibits and self-guided tours at their own pace.
The museum provides an in-depth history of telecommunications and highlights major moments in its development, such as racing to patent office or being invented dial system by undergarer. With more than 1000 artifacts such as wall-mount telephones, candlesticks and operator switchboards on display here – you are bound to experience all that this industry offers!
Visit the New Mexico Museum of Telephony to reminisce on its early days as a phone service provider. Run on a volunteer basis, this museum boasts an expansive collection of telephone-related items from manual operator switchboards to military telephones dating from World War I through Gulf War. There’s even an authentic telephone pole complete with climbing equipment – and over 300 pieces of tools and machinery used by telecom professionals themselves!
Gift Shop
The Museum offers a vast collection of telephone equipment and memorabilia that allows visitors to explore the past by engaging with these items. You will learn about the development of telephone technology from its solid wood, wall mounted, hand cranked designs of days gone by to today’s pocket-sized, touch screen celluar phones.
The collection features a fully functional hands-on switchboard, crank wall phones and decorator phones as well as replicas of early telephones like Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Telephone and Thomas A. Watson’s Thumper Phone from their respective eras. Furthermore, Dominion Telegraph Agent Alexander Taylor brought one into Edmonton.
Other artifacts at the museum include an exhibit of telephones used along Route 66 and historical photographs showing their work as linemen and telephone workers throughout New Mexico. A visit here would make an excellent history lesson, telecommucation lesson or just family outing experience – plus there’s even a gift shop with unique telephone-related items!
