Telephone company3/20/2023 ![]() Growth of the telephone system was gradual and steady over the next years. The company’s new two-story brick central office was opened that year, bringing 10,000 visitors in two days to an open house. In 1905, you could call 43 numbers in Westville, 17 in Soldier’s Home. At that time, Danville supported twelve attorneys, a cigar maker, five newspapers, and a bath parlor. Business merited a special section in the back of the book. Steely could be reached at the First National Bank, Main 36. The not-yet-yellow pages listed 14 liveries and two budding auto agencies. Emergency calls in 1903 went to the police at Main 34, or Lakeview Hospital at Main 174. The Central and Eastern Illinois Railroad had eight telephones listed while the city conducted its business on five. had to remember four digits to reach him. Customers for Charles Ahrens’ Saloon in East Main St. In 1903, the American Can Company could be reached at Hoopeston 1. To call Central, take hand telephone from hook and place to ear.” Instructions for using the phone read, “In talking, speak in a moderate tone and directly into the transmitter with lips as close as possible to the mouthpiece. By October 18th, Miss Eva Beck was sitting at the switchboard, ready to connect any two of the city’s 19 telephones. Six homes snapped up the service, including W. Telephones were installed in thirteen offices, including the First National Bank, the Vermilion City Bank, Dickason and English, the St. Already Danville, one of the most important cities in Illinois, was getting in on the line. Only two years before, in 1877, Alexander Graham Bell had buttoned up his first practical telephone. The exchange will soon be complete, and the telephone will soon be as familiar to our business people as the fares of their neighbors. Some words were passed over it yesterday and the click of the telegraph can be distinctly heard. ![]() It was attached to the telegraph wire which runs into the News office, but as a battery is between the office and the junction, and telephones do not work through batteries, yesterday an individual wire was put up from this office through the Western Union telegraph office to the junction and now all things are ready for a telephone test. Then on Tuesday, September 23rd, the Danville Daily News blared: The first telephone put up in this city was placed in the News counting room last Saturday, and another was placed at the junction. Martin was president of the Temperance Society, and the circus was coming to town on October 2. The best buys in town were at Cheap Charley’s Clothing Store. Polhemus and Smith had opened their new meat market on February 11th. Photo: Central Office, Vermilion County Telephone Company, about 1915 ![]()
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