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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Touring the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, Georgia

Eric and I are curious about the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie at the Americus Visitor Center.  Will it be a very compact museum like the Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame in Saint Marys?  The Telephone Museum is kind of on our way back from Americus to Southern Trails RV Resort in Unadilla.  






The Georgia Rural Telephone
Museum is housed in an
old cotton warehouse.







A sign on the door tells visitors to go across the street to the phone company office for assistance.






An employee of the
walks with us across the street
& opens the museum for us.




Tommy C. Smith, CEO of
Citizens Telephone Co., Inc.,
is the driving force behind
the Georgia Rural Telephone
Museum.






Eric and I are the only ones here this afternoon.






Scottish born inventor,
working on the telephone in
the early 1870s.








Three days later, on March 10, his assistant, Watson, who was working in the next room, a scratchy voice over the phone line:  "Mr. Watson come here; I want you."  

Being able to communicate within minutes instead of within days shrank how we experience the world.









One of the many displays
of telephones dating
from the 1880s.















Desk Phones dating from
the 1880s & 1890s.













Telephone wires were run
throughout communities
to connect telephone
customers.












Glass insulators top the arms
of the telephone poles.







The telephone operator was needed to connect two phone lines to make a phone call.









A telephone operator works
the switchboard, connecting
callers.













A collection of Pay
Telephones from the
very early 1900s














An early Public Telephone
booth















An early 1900s wall phone














Attachments were added to
phones... 

The Address Book is
always at hand.












This 1905 "Grab-a-Phone"
was manufactured by
the Kellogg Company.














Bubba the Bear talks to
visitors by telephone.




Phones get fancy...

The novelty phone on the left
was manufactured in the 1960s.

The desk phone on the right 
is from the 1920s.





As more people and businesses had phones, telephone company equipment became more complex.






The one person switchboard
became a room full of
switchboards with numerous
operators.














With one wire per phone,
phone wires were bundled.













Computerized phone
connections took over
for telephone operators.







Phone styles change...

Novelty phones come
& go..








.



I LOVE the helicopter
phone!












Ericsson produced the
"Erica Phone" in the
1960s.










Toys phones are always
popular.

This museum has a toy
switchboard.











A scale model telephone bucket
truck positions telephone repair
 people to work on phone lines.






From the photo in the background, it's my guess that soon after the invention of the telephone, it was used for phone sex.






This toy phone truck has an
auger attachment that is used
 to dig holes for phone
pole installation.






The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum is amazing!  I expected one room displaying phones and maybe a phone booth.  The history of the telephone unfolded as Eric and I walked from room to room.

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