The Telephone Historical Centre is a museum that honors those who have contributed to making telecommunications possible over time, from Alexander Graham Bell’s iconic gallows frame phone all the way up to today’s mobile smart phones.
At this museum, visitors are free to move at their own pace while exploring its collection. Additionally, guided tours led by knowledgeable docents are also available.
Opening Hours
Our Mission Is to showcase the social and technical significance of telephone networks from 1876 until now by using working equipment as tangible proof of an ever-evolving technology. Additionally, we honor and celebrate the craftsmanship, ingenuity, and industry of the telecom community with educational programs, exhibits and special events.
The museum explores local and global telecommunication history through working step switch and crossbar electromechanical central office switching equipment, antique wooden box phones, candlestick wall phones, classic rotary models, outside plant displays including poles, wire and splicing gear; as well as one of North America’s largest cataloged telecommunication reference libraries.
The Museum first opened on December 3, 1987 in Old Strathcona before moving to Prince of Wales Armouries Heritage Centre in 2004. As Canada’s only museum dedicated solely to telephones and how they have changed our lives, this experience-based learning venue provides visitors of all ages an enjoyable way to learn about how their invention has revolutionized everyday lives.
Admission
No matter your phone preferences or tech aspirations, Telephone Historical Centre has something to offer everyone. Their collection of artifacts offers a glimpse into telecommunication history; showing how phones have developed from Alexander Graham Bell’s original gallows frame telephone to touchscreen smartphones today.
Guided tours with experienced docents are also available, for a deeper insight into the museum collection. Additionally, self-guided tours can also be taken.
Telecommunications History Group, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation based out of Denver, Colorado operates the museum. Renamed the Connections Museum to honor founder Herb Warrick and better reflect our mission of promoting telecommunications history, this museum is fully funded through membership fees and private donations as well as accredited by Museums Alberta. Among other exhibits it houses working Step-by-Step and Panel electromechanical central office switches as well as candlestick and wooden wall telephones, antique line insulators antique line insulators as well as various communications equipment and machines.
Group Tours
The museum houses an expansive collection of telephone-related artifacts. Ranging from manual cord boards to electromechanical switching mechanisms, you’ll find everything here!
This collection was put together through the efforts of Violette & Bartlett families and Garry Mitchell, both veterans of the telephone industry. Exhibits within this collection tell an incredible tale about how the telephone has developed from an early laboratory prototype into modern mobile phones that span great distances.
From crank wall phones and classic rotary models, to working switchboards and an impressive collection of crank phones from Alexander Graham Bell’s workshop to your smartphone in your pocket – one of North America’s premier collections on communications history can be found at this museum. Tracing its roots back from Alexander Graham Bell to iPhone in your pocket. Among its highlights: details from small one-town companies; operator switchboards; phone details from smaller one-town companies; case full of insulators that house telephone wires; as well as various working demonstration systems like Panel and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches – an interactive museum that encourages visitors to touch equipment!
Traveling Trunks Program
Traveling Trunks extend the museum’s commitment to education beyond its walls and into classrooms across North Carolina through an outreach program called Traveling Trunks. Teachers, school media specialists and community members in Alamance, Angier, Cabarrus, Burke, Davidson, Chatham Durham Forsyth Granville Guilford Hoke Iredell Johnston Lee Nash Orange Rowan Surry Yadkin counties can take advantage of these resource trunks.
Experience history first hand at one of the nation’s largest collections of antique telephones, memorabilia and telecom equipment at Roseville Telephone Museum. Features working Step-by-Step and Crossbar electromechanical central office switches, antique wooden box phones, candlestick wall phones and candlestick phone booths from different eras as well as plant displays with poles, cables and splicing equipment for outdoor display. The museum also houses an expansive cataloged telecommunications reference library owned by Telecom Pioneers, a non-profit 501(c)(3) Bell System employee service organization. Both guided and self-guided tours are available here – providing visitors with an opportunity to discover communications technologies of yesteryear as well as how we communicate today.
