The Telephone Historical Centre preserves Edmonton’s telecom history and heritage through museums, archives, and educational programs. The museum features historic images from early phone technology in Edmonton. Furthermore, an unparalleled collection of telephone directories and technical manuals complete the picture.
It also boasts working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switch equipment; operator switchboards; antique phones; outside plant displays that feature poles, cables and splicing tools; cataloged reference materials as well as educational programs designed for students and teachers.
Museum
Telephones have become such a part of life that it can be easy to forget how revolutionary Alexander Graham Bell’s invention was. But its implementation wasn’t a seamless journey – it took many trials and courage for it to go public.
This museum, established by former ED TEL employees, presents the history of telecom through an impressive collection of antique telephone equipment and archives. Offering ADA compliant facilities, this museum makes for ideal school field trips or sightseeing tours; featuring working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches; operator switchboards; antique wooden crank wall phones and classic rotary dial telephones as well as outside plant displays including poles cables splicing tools and equipment as well as one of North America’s largest cataloged telecom reference libraries.
This Museum boasts many rare original books from 1877 such as “The Speaking Telephone: Its Mechanism and Theory”, making this visit essential for anyone interested in telecommunications history.
Archives
The Edmonton Archives offer an extraordinary resource of historical material relating to the development and evolution of telephone technology, as well as one of the largest telephone reference libraries in North America. They serve as a valuable resource for researchers, students, and anyone wanting to delve deeper into Edmonton’s telephone history.
This collection features early telephone directories with information such as profession and homeowner status of its citizens. Also included is an extensive archive of photographs from early telephone pioneers in Chicago as well as antique phones ranging from wooden box phones to candlestick wall phones.
Sheldon Hochheiser, the center’s corporate historian, highlights some of the more interesting items in their archives. These include an 1877 book entitled The Telephone: An Account of Electricity, Magnetism and Sound that contains detailed diagrams and instructions on how to construct a speaking telephone; also included is Thomas Watson’s notebook from 1870s and early ’80s documenting his efforts at transmitting intelligible speech transmission.
Education Programs
The Edmonton Telephone Historical Centre was one of North America’s most comprehensive telecommunications history museums and archives, housing an extensive working collection of Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switch equipment; candlestick wall phones; antique phones; outside plant displays (such as poles, cables, splicing tools and antique line insulators); two position Kellogg universal switchboards and an extensive cataloged research library.
Its extensive collection of telephones dating back to 1878 allows students, researchers, and the curious to trace how technology evolved – from Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame to touch-tone dialing on your modern cell phone – making the Museum and Archives an invaluable resource to bridge past and evolving technologies and cultures.
This museum opened for business on Dec 3, 1987 in Old Strathcona neighbourhood and relocated to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in central Edmonton four years later in 2004. Unfortunately, due to relevancy and financial concerns related to running such an institution, its foundation decided in April to close it down for good.
Events
THG boasts one of the largest collections of telephone history in North America and offers events and programs to connect its past to evolving technologies and cultures. From Alexander Graham Bell’s solid wood wall-mounted phones to multifunctional mobile devices today, this museum sheds light on how telecom has developed over time as generations built the system, buried cables underground, installed poles overhead, managed this vital technology – showcasing it all along the way!
Museum visitors can experience first-hand how iterative design processes led to today’s communications equipment by engaging with hands-on displays at the museum. Visitors can operate manual switchboards or manually dial their phones – both are manual systems – while there’s also an extensive reference library of telecom books and catalogs as well as an impressive collection of line insulators on display.
Roseville Museum was created by retired EDTEL employees as Canada’s only facility dedicated to this field. Roseville features two Kellogg universal switchboards; an automated branch exchange with step-by-step stepping change principles; antique wooden box phones and candlestick wall phones from various eras as well as rotary dial telephones in its collection.
