Experience how instant communication has revolutionized life since Alexander Graham Bell introduced the first gallows frame phone in 1876. This unique museum showcases fascinating collections dating from that first telephone up until modern smartphones exist today.
Established in 1987 and housed in an Old Strathcona former telephone exchange building, this facility is one of the largest of its kind. Featuring working panel and crossbar electromechanical central office switchboards; outdoor plant displays featuring poles wires splicing equipment tools; as well as an extensive cataloged reference library, this museum stands alone among similar institutions.
History
Established by retired employees of ED TEL and inaugurated on December 3, 1987, this museum showcases telephone-related items. One of its largest in North America, it can be found in Edmonton at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre.
Contrary to other museums where exhibits are simply seen but not interacted with, this one encourages visitors to interact with its devices. You can crank old wooden wall phones from the 1800s along the walls of the museum or become an operator on an early 1900s manual switchboard and put through callers yourself!
Explore the fascinating history of telephone technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s gallows frame phone through to modern cell phones at this museum, which showcases outdoor plant displays of poles and cables splicing equipment tools as well as an extensive catalogued reference library.
Exhibits
Established by retired employees of ED TEL in 1987, this museum specializes in collecting, researching, organizing, documenting, displaying and archiving telephone-related items. Both group tours and self-guided tours are available. Collection items include an electric working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switch; a manual switchboard featuring an illustrated step-by-step private automatic branch exchange; antique wooden box phones, candlestick wall phones and decorator phones as well as antique rotary dial telephones (such as one which reported President William McKinley’s assassination in 1893); military telephones from WWI through Gulf War; line insulators/poles as well as an extensive cataloged reference library on telecom history are featured among these items.
This museum is one of the largest facilities of its kind in North America and offers visitors a chance to interact with and learn about communications technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to cell phones found today. Tours are available daily as well as a multi-media presentation. Place orders with our rotary phone as you discover all of the various forms communication has taken throughout history.
Education
Telecommunications museums often host educational workshops that align with school curriculum requirements and extend their collections through outreach programs like Traveling Trunks that bring artifacts directly into schools and communities. Such hands-on engagement helps young people comprehend the impact of technological innovations on our societal structures while inspiring their entrepreneurial spirits for future innovations.
The Edmonton Telephone Historical Centre is Canada’s only museum dedicated to telecom history, featuring working panels and crossbar electromechanical central office switches including operator switchboards; outdoor plant displays of poles wire and insulators; as well as an extensive cataloged reference library for researchers. Established by former ED TEL employees and opened to visitors in 1987.
This Edmonton museum encourages its visitors to take self-guided tours through their collections. Their exhibits depict the evolution of instant communication technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s original gallows frame phone to multifunctional mobile phones used today; each piece of equipment offers insight into innovation and technology.
Events
Discover these fascinating stories of human ingenuity and innovation at this special museum established by retired ED TEL employees in 1987 and open to visitors today.
This museum honors communications technology’s past with its working electromechanical central office switch and operator switchboard; outdoor plant displays of poles, wire, and splicing equipment; an extensive cataloged reference library; group and individual sightseeing tours for visitors; as well as paying homage to those who built and erected poles and buried lines throughout Edmonton and Alberta over decades.
The museum provides educational workshops that align with school curriculum requirements, while their outreach program called Traveling Trunks brings artifacts directly into classrooms for display. Both of these programs encourage engineering while giving students an opportunity to compare modern technologies to those from decades past. It also gives Boy Scouts an opportunity to fulfill one of their Inventing and Engineering merit badge requirements at the same time!
