Pioneer Texas Telephones

The plaque places Cleburne's dial telephones about 1904, ahead of use elsewhere. Automatic switching was already older. Almon Strowger, a Kansas City undertaker who believed operators were mishandling his calls, patented a system on March 11, 1891, built to connect up to ninety-nine telephones. The first Strowger exchange went into service at La Porte, Indiana, in November 1892, according to an EBSCO research summary. The Cleburne company the plaque names opened in 1882 and closed in 1912, so its dial years fell in the first two decades of automatic switching.

What the plaque says

Pioneer Texas Telephones The first telephones in Texas, in 1878, connected the "Galveston News" with the home of its publisher, Col. A. H. Belo. Galveston also had the first exchange, 1879, and first long-distance line, which ran to Houston, in 1883. Cleburne phone service began 1882 when Automatic Telephone Company opened. In 1897 Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company (which later joined Bell System) started another firm. It built city's first long distance line, 12 miles to Alvarado junction. Monthly rates were $2 to $3. About 1904, the Automatic Telephone Company installed some of first dial phones in U.S.- fifteen years before they were used successfully elsewhere. But in 1912, problems forced the Automatic Telephone Company to close. Near turn of century, rural areas often used barbed wire fences for phone lines. Even urban homes shared party lines, each one having its special "ring". Circuits joined a main switchboard manned by one operator "central"--- the hub of local news. "Central" always knew where to find town doctor and was a clearing house for funeral plans. The unemployed could ask her who needed workers; she advertised by ringing all phones to read announcements. Many small towns regretted losing her services when dial phones came into use. By 1966, Texas had 4,474,722 telephones, 134 companies. Incise in base: Early travel, transportation and communication series erected by the Moody Foundation. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cleburne State Park — 12 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.
• Acton State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
• Granbury Courthouse Square — 24 mi
  A National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
• Dinosaur Valley State Park — 26 mi
  Theropod and sauropod trackways of about 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River, a National Natural Landmark where R. T. Bird found the first distinct sauropod tracks in 1937.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Picnic Grounds — steps away
• Cleburne Town Square — steps away
• Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; Cleburne, Patrick R., General — steps away
• First Baptist Church Of Cleburne — steps away