The Museum offers an intriguing journey back through history of communications with its collection of antique telephones, switchboards and related equipment. Colorful painted backdrops adorn displays including two switchboards (one from Plains’ last step-by-step private automatic branch exchange system and another from its panel system), antique line insulators and novelty phones.

Collections

Telephone Historical Centre stands out as a museum where visitors can actually touch and operate telephone equipment – making it truly interactive! Their impressive collections chronicle telecommunications history from its early manufacturing stages to research laboratories today. Skilled docents (current or retired Bell employees) guide visitors around exhibits with enthusiasm and expertise, helping make history come to life!

The museum’s telephony collection boasts an assortment of manual system telephones first introduced to Edmonton in 1885 as well as early automatic switching ones, dating back to when manual exchanges were still used until automated exchanges replaced them. There is also a Kellogg universal switchboard; an interactive visitor display which enables visitors to connect telephone circuits using toggle switches using cord pairs or lamp pairs; this recreates what used to happen prior to automated exchanges taking over their role.

The collection also boasts the McKinley phone (1897), which reported President William McKinley’s assassination; two rotary dial ‘Box’ phones commonly used at home; as well as panel systems from Brownsville Brooklyn and Mollendo Peru as well as Ericsson AGF500 phones from Ericsson AGF500 series manufactured between 1978-1987.

Exhibits

Telephone technology was once revolutionary; these spaces explore its journey from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop through today’s multifunctional handsets. Technical manuals, patent filings and engineering notes offer insight into its incessant evolution as it became an indispensable piece of the global fabric.

Telephone Historical Centre features an expansive collection of antique phones and related telecommunications equipment from across time. Colorful painted backdrops add dimension to equipment displays such as switchboards (with one featuring an eccentric scene from Plains); Maine’s last Step-by-Step private automatic system; Britain’s iconic red phone boxes which have graced roadside verges since 1920; crank wall phones which clacked and ticked when people dialed; party lines where neighbors shared phone circuits while using different ring tones to identify who called; automated timers would warn users if they used too much;

Educational Programs

Museums and telecommunications enthusiasts play an integral role in inspiring future engineers by keeping records and artifacts of phone history. Doing so allows them to demonstrate the profound changes brought about by this invention’s pervasiveness in terms of connectivity, business practices, emergency services and much more.

The museum boasts an expansive collection of antique phones and telecom equipment dating back centuries, such as switchboards (one depicting an eccentric scene from Plains), private automatic branch exchange systems (PABS), and the telegraph display which demonstrates its transformation from wooden wall-mounted devices directed by operators into today’s pocket cellular phones.

The Museum’s Telephone Workshops provide young adults and children alike an interactive learning experience through ancient telephones and modern day telecommunications equipment. By drawing upon America’s rich telephone history and comparing contemporary semiconductor architecture with vintage technology, these hands-on programs encourage an abundance of curiosity that led to this groundbreaking invention and continues to fuel today’s inventors and innovators.

Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteers provide vital support for Society programs, events and activities throughout the year. Opportunities available to volunteers range from museum tour guiding to working with children at youth activity tables, helping out at hearth kitchen functions or performing administrative work at Society office. Docents are specially trained volunteers who lead tours of Museum and historic site that engage visitors of all ages while offering educational experiences that promote cultural understanding.

Docents undergo training at the Museum to become experts on its exhibition themes and Moravian contributions to local, regional, and world history; then share this passion for our collection with visitors. Visitor Services volunteers are also on hand at both stores – one storing merchandise while the other outside offering information or services cart – offering enhanced visitor experiences.

Register museum artifacts using registration methods such as accessioning, numbering, minor research, inventory and document processing. This position is ideal for museum management/studies or registration track students and serves as an excellent introduction to non-profit historic sites.

Visits to Telephone Historical Centres offer visitors the chance to witness the development of communications technology over time. These museums preserve an extensive collection of early models and prototypes as well as advertisements, photographs, personal narratives and personal accounts which help us better comprehend their development within their broader context.

The museum boasts a working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switch, antique phones, switchboards, outside plant displays with poles and cable, cataloged telecommunications reference materials and more.

Visiting Hours

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier hands-on museums, providing visitors with an engaging museum experience. Situated in Edmonton, Alberta it features a wide variety of phone items dating back to early 1900s through today as well as interactive displays and a cataloged telecommunications reference library. Established by retired ED TEL employees in 1987 and opened for public access two years later at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre located central Edmonton.

The museum features working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central-office switches, outdoor plant displays featuring poles, cables, splicing equipment and tools, antique telephones as well as crank wall phones, decorator phones and switchboards which tell a compelling tale of how communication technology has revolutionized human lives over time.

Admission

The Museum at Jefferson Barracks Park is housed in a beautifully restored 1896 telephone building and houses one of the world’s finest collections of telephones and related equipment. Operated entirely by volunteers from Southwestern Bell and AT&T as well as Telecom Pioneers (a non-profit 501(c)(3) employee service organization), it boasts one of the world’s best telephone collections and related equipment collections.

The museum features working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches, antique telephones and switchboards, outdoor plant displays with poles, cables, splicing equipment tools and other communications devices, along with a cataloged telecommunications reference library. Knowledgeable docents – current or retired employees from the phone company who volunteer their time – offer their guidance through the museum to visitors.

Parking spaces are available both in a large public lot and nearby streets. Street parking is generally free; just make sure not to park in residential zones (look out for blue spaces that belong only to residents). If no lot is available, pay-to-park meters may also be found throughout the block.

Parking

This museum provides an intimate history of telecomms, featuring vintage equipment that would rival any James Bond flick. Furthermore, there is an organized library full of references on the subject for researchers.

Visitors to the Phone Museum can explore exhibits spanning more than a century of communications technology in Roseville and worldwide, from working central office step switches such as Panel and Crossbar electromechanical Step Switches, outside plant displays such as poles, cables, splicing equipment and tools as well as antique telephones, switchboards and various telephone related machines and artifacts to modern day phones with working Panel and Crossbar electromechanical Step Switches on display at both museums.

This accessible history museum is housed in a restored 1896 building that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, within Jefferson Barracks Park about 15 minutes south of St. Louis. With hands-on exhibits designed to spark children’s interest in engineering and history, Jefferson Barracks Park Museum makes for a fantastic family outing or school field trip destination.

Tours

Collections offer an insightful narrative about the technology that enabled breakthroughs in connectivity and emergency services. They preserve physical instruments like Alexander Graham Bell’s liquid transmitter from his attic workshop as well as historical documents like advertisements or personal narratives to give contemporary audiences greater context for understanding these devices’ operation over time.

Visit Telephone Historical Centre is an engaging experience. Offering both guided and self-guided tours led by knowledgeable docents who are current or former telephone workers themselves, their passion lies with preserving phone history through preservation and celebration of its past.

Visitors to the museum can explore everything from wooden wall phones and rotary dialers, to recreations of independent phone exchanges in small town America with glass insulators, poles, cables, splicing equipment and tools – even outside plant displays! It also houses one of the world’s largest collections of antique telephones and memorabilia!

This museum boasts both an entertaining and educational collection that pays homage to those who designed, erected poles, buried lines, and constructed telephone systems worldwide. Housed within an old telephone building, the collection boasts one of the largest collections in North America.

Archives at this facility house unique original volumes including vintage telephone directories and technical manuals, along with crank wall phones and decorator phones from bygone years. Visitors may also discover crank wall phones or decorator phones from this era.

The Museum of Independent Telephony

In 1990, a small group of retired and active telephone employees formed the Telecommunications History Group (THG). Alarmed by reports that historical items were being lost due to building relocation, department closure or personnel changes, they decided to form the non-profit Gridley Museum of Independent Telephony that has since grown significantly since.

The museum features a recreation of an old telephone exchange, with displays of glass insulators and antique phones from yesteryear. Additionally, this tribute pays homage to all the many small independent telephone companies which came into being after Alexander Graham Bell’s patent rights expired in the mid-1890s, serving much of rural America with telephone service.

The museum features an impressive collection of original hand-crank wall phones installed by local farm families, in addition to an operating manual switchboard equipped with Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange and an extensive assortment of rotary dial phone systems.

The Roseville Telephone Company

Roseville Telephone Museum chronicles a century of communications technology. Spanning 4,500-square feet, this museum displays one of the nation’s finest collections of antique telephones and equipment from early switchboards to novelty phones – sure to engage visitors of any age or technical background! Professional curators guide visitors through these exhibits, creating an entertaining and educational experience. From early switchboards to novelty phones – every visit here offers something new!

Before opening to the public in 1994, this company spent five years collecting and curating various types of telephones and equipment from both domestic and international manufacturers. Additionally, their museum features an impressive display of colorful line insulators.

Today, the museum serves as a research facility for SureWest Telecommunications Company. The facility makes for an enjoyable family outing or school field trip destination; knowledgeable docents–current or retired employees volunteering their time–are on hand to guide visitors through the exhibits.

The Oklahoma Museum of Telephone History

Oklahoma City boasts numerous national-caliber museums such as the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum and National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, but the local area also features niche museums – one being Oklahoma Telephone Museum which showcases more than 100 years of telephones and telecom memorabilia. Old-fashioned switchboards from when callers spoke with operators before placing calls can also be found here, as well as tools used for installation and maintenance purposes – like wax pots for dipping spliced cables; stretchers to tighten cables; Wheatstone bridges were used to measure resistance – to pinpoint trouble spots quickly!

Bob McCoy, who retired as an engineer for Southwestern Bell, donated part of his collection to this museum at 111 Dean A McGee Avenue; today it contains thousands of items that show how telephone technology has developed over time. Admission is free.

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum in Warner, NH began as the personal collections of several people with careers in telecommunications. Today it boasts an astounding array of over 1000 artifacts providing an invaluable look into communications technology evolution.

The museum houses everything from switchboards and rotary phones, wooden wall-mount telephones and phone booths. Candlestick phones and the first flip phones as well as novelty princess phones can be found. Furthermore, this museum reflects how design trends changed when plastic phones became widely available.

Laura French, director of the museum, loves to highlight that many advances in telecommunications occurred in approximately 150 years – from Alexander Graham Bell’s accidental invention of the telephone in 1876 all the way through to today’s advanced smart phones and wireless devices. It serves as an important reminder of just how far our world has progressed since 1876!

This museum preserves telecommunication history through working rotary dialers, manual switchboards, linemen’s pole climbing stirrups, an impressive collection of fun phones, and much more – one of North America’s premier telephone museums!

Our Telephone Workshops promote an interest in engineering by teaching children and adults electrical theory, screw driving skills and historical technical events in an interactive learning environment.

Educational Programs

The Museum offers an engaging history lesson of telecommunications technology and systems from Alexander Graham Bell’s Gallows Frame Phone to Thomas A Watson’s Thumper Phone as well as modern mobile phones in use today. Additionally, museum exhibits feature manual switchboards, working telecommunications equipment for linemen’s use as well as an impressive collection of glass insulators among many other interesting artifacts.

School outreach programs focus on community issues and skills that directly affect student lives. Museum educators collaborate with classroom teachers to conduct lessons that meet social studies curriculum standards.

Telephone Workshops aim to spark participants’ interest in engineering by using historical telecommunications artifacts as hands-on learning environments for exploring electricity and electric theory. These workshops promote STEM by cultivating and encouraging participants’ inherent curiosity – such as that which drove Alexander Graham Bell in creating his telecommunications inventions – as well as providing an appreciation of engineering in the workplace.

Community Outreach

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums. Established by retired ED TEL employees in December 1987 in Old Strathcona, it later relocated to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre where visitors can take group and individual tours as well as interactive exhibits that illustrate communications principles alongside an outstanding multi-media historical telecommunications theatre show!

Museum visitors experience an exciting journey into the history of communications technology and systems – from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to modern mobile phones. Visitors can explore a manual switchboard, step inside a replica of a local small town Midwest independent telephone exchange and admire HBEC staff and CAB members’ collection of glass insulators. Due to cancellation of in-person research events and health education during Covid-19 pandemic, they designed this telephone outreach project as a means of keeping registry participants engaged; callers collected data on their experiences during pandemic as well as recommended resources tailored specifically towards participants’ expressed needs.

Corporate Events

Established by retired employees of ED TEL in 1987, this non-profit 501c (3) museum collects, researches, organizes, documents, and displays telephone equipment from across North America. As one of North America’s premier telephone museums, its specialty lies in working equipment that illustrates tangible aspects of telecom history ranging from Alexander Graham Bell’s wall-mount phone to pocket mobile phones of today.

The museum provides students and adults with an engaging way to gain an understanding of communications technology. Visitors can step inside an authentic Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange demonstrating its stepping switch principle; explore an old-fashioned rotary dial phone and manual switchboard; or browse a collection of telephone insulators.

The Museum is managed entirely by volunteers, who oversee all aspects of its facility. Volunteer opportunities range from giving tours and overseeing youth activities to cataloguing artifacts professionally – some positions even require formal artifact handling training as well as experience working within libraries or teaching environments.

Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteers of various skills and experiences are needed at our museum. From helping maintain its cleanliness to staffing the reception desk or greeting tour groups, as well as performing clerical work or sales at our museum store and general duties – there’s plenty of ways you can assist us!

Docents from museums across Atlanta provide guided tours for visitors of the History Center, Brookside Museum and outdoor exhibits. In addition, museum docents participate in educational outreach programs that bring the museum directly into schools and nursing homes.

Artifact assistants work alongside collection management staff in cleaning, cataloguing and preparing museum objects for display. In addition, they assist with genealogy research using the Society’s vast resources to uncover family histories.

The Museum houses an impressive selection of wooden wall-mount telephones; antique manual and candlestick phones; rotary dial phones and switchboards as well as line insulators and related equipment – an intriguing display of western Pennsylvania heritage! Volunteers engage children of all ages through this fascinating display of heritage.

The Telephone Historical Centre preserves and exhibits antique telephones and telecommunications equipment. As North America’s premier museum of its kind, this attraction is sure to entertain all ages.

Discover the history of communications technology from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to modern mobile phones. Step inside a manual switchboard or Step-by-Step private automatic branch exchange which illustrates stepping switch principle; explore glass insulators collection; step inside manual switchboard.

Educational Programs

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums, dedicated to collecting, researching, organizing, documenting, exhibiting and preserving historical materials on telecom developments locally and worldwide. Established by retired ED TEL employees in December 1987 in Old Strathcona before relocating to its current home at Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in 2004.

Our museum exhibits offer a fascinating journey through communications history from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to today’s mobile phones. Their vast collection features antique telephones and equipment, manual switchboards, recreations of independent telephone exchanges that served rural Midwest communities outside Bell System exchanges as well as glass insulators from every era imaginable.

Classroom Outreach programs offer teachers and their students an educational experience that meets state social studies standards while using authentic artifacts as teaching tools. Our educators can visit your school, community education center or business to host an engaging interactive lesson focusing on telecommunications history.

School Outreach

School outreach programs introduce students to community issues while stimulating skills development that they can apply directly in their daily lives. By amplifying students’ voices by connecting economic, political, and societal forces that affect them directly, school outreach programs empower young people to become agents of change within their local communities.

The Telephone Historical Centre gathers, researches, organizes, documents, displays and stores historical materials pertaining to North America’s telecom history. With a museum, library and outstanding archive encompassing physical items as well as digital resources – it is truly an institution with something for everyone in this regard!

Join the museum on an engaging exploration of communications history with an interactive tour through their exhibitions spanning from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to pocket cell phones! Explore a working manual switchboard, discover the science of telecom systems and technology, visit our amazing glass insulators collection and gain insight into non-Bell System telephone exchanges that served small town Midwest communities and rural areas – not forgetting tools of trade for linemen as well as recreation of one such independent exchange!

Community Outreach

The Telephone Historical Centre provides an unparalleled account of North American telecommunication history through an impressive collection and archives. As one of the premier telephone museums, it features phones and related items dating from Alexander Graham Bell’s attic workshop to today. Visitors can explore rotary dials, manual switchboards, working telecommunications equipment and tools of trade used by linemen at this interactive museum. Furthermore, an outstanding display of glass insulators pays homage to rural and small town Midwest communities outside Bell System exchanges served by independent phone companies that offered phones services outside Bell System exchanges through an impressive collection.

The Museum provides an active community outreach program through classroom outreach visits for schools and local organizations, featuring staff engaging with classroom teachers to craft engaging lessons using historical artifacts suitable for all age ranges of students. This service is offered free to schools. In addition, the Be Seen Yonkers Campaign distributes free reflective armbands to residents to keep walkers, joggers and runners safe on local roadways.

Volunteer Opportunities

Community outreach is essential to building healthy communities, from disseminating informational pamphlets about new health and safety regulations to designing interactive educational games and exhibits that educate children and visitors. Volunteers play an integral role in many forms of community outreach activities ranging from helping out at events or programs in person to cataloguing and preserving historical artifacts for future generations.

Are You Looking for Volunteer Opportunities? Visit Our Volunteer Opportunities Page Today and Find Something Fits. From home-based volunteering options to international trips, there’s sure to be something available!

The Telephone Historical Centre is one of North America’s premier telephone museums and serves to preserve telecommunication history through research, collecting, organizing, documenting, displaying and storing historical materials relating to local and worldwide developments in telecommunications. Established by former employees from ED TEL in December 1987 in Old Strathcona for temporary exhibition purposes only before moving permanently to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre for permanent exhibit. This museum exhibits both technical and social significance through fully operational pieces exhibited as part of its multi-media Telecommunications Theatre show.