The Telephone Historical Centre Collections in Edmonton is a telecommunications museum. For over 10 years it has chronicled technological changes to telephones while collecting old models as reminders of how far we’ve come.
This exciting collection boasts an exquisite full-sized magneto switchboard, Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange and rare phone booths as some of its stars.
Telephone Sets
Few innovations have had as profound an effect on human communication than the telephone, and this collection explores its place within business, society and culture.
The collection of phones at the museum spans from Alexander Bell’s inaugural phone in 1876 to mobile technology today, and even features a Kellogg universal switchboard that allows visitors to simulate how operators would have connected circuits years ago – it even works!
Other exhibits at the museum include candlestick wall phones; the McKinley phone (1897), which was used to report President William McKinley’s assassination; an old Western Electric Model 21 wall phone that is often referred to as the “three jug phone”, and an attractive telephone from 1920. There is also a display of explosion-proof telephones used in mines or other environments where even minor sparks could spark disaster.
Colorful painted backdrops decorate equipment displays like an operator switchboard and last step-by-step private automatic branch exchange system, along with panel systems. The phone museum is an engaging stop for history enthusiasts, families and school groups on field trips or sightseeing tours of Edmonton.
Operator Switchboards
Before automated systems made phone calls easier for callers, calls to non-local numbers (or between local lines) required a manual exchange where operators used electrical cords and switches to establish connections – usually operated by women.
Finding female operators wasn’t always easy, though. Male operators tended to roughhouse and often cussed out impatient subscribers; phone companies used door-knocking techniques in an effort to attract better-mannered operators by canvassing girls and young women at random addresses.
The museum boasts a working model of an early telephone switchboard that visitors can use to simulate how callers connected in the past. The switchboard comprises rows of female jacks wired as either individual subscriber extensions (to one subscriber at a time) or trunk lines; each of them also contains its own lamp.
Military Telephones
This collection includes a working central office step switch, operator switchboards, crank wall phones and hundreds of pieces of telephone equipment. In addition, the museum boasts one of North America’s largest telecommunications reference libraries as well as outdoor plant displays of poles, wire, splicing equipment and tools.
Docents, who are current and retired employees of the phone company volunteering their time, provide visitors with expert escorting through exhibits. Additionally, the museum features hands-on displays designed to spark children’s curiosity about technology and history; Boy Scouts can use the museum as fulfillment of Inventing and Engineering merit badge requirements.
This collection displays the development of telephone technology over a century, from manual system telephones to automated switching technology. Artifacts related to Bell’s contributions in furthering telecom are also present here, along with an original Kellogg Universal switchboard from 1940 which shows line switching performed manually at telephone exchanges prior to automated systems becoming commonplace.
Wall Phones
Our collection boasts nearly a century of items related to telephone technology. As a non-profit organization funded by membership dues, research fees, and grants we maintain one of the nation’s largest privately held telecommunication archives as well as operating two museums.
Our museum boasts an assortment of rotary dial phones as well as early switchboards from Lars Magnus Ericsson in 1878 – as well as an operational replica.
Many companies produced wall phones in the 1900s and 1920s. While some models were made from wood with intricate carvings, others featured simpler designs or were less ornate; others still came equipped with standard pony receivers and cathedral top designs that collectors commonly refer to. A rare find were double box or twin box phones containing magnetos that generated electricity to power it.
