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

Citizens Telephone Co., Inc.

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,

Alexander Graham Bell was

working on the telephone in

the early 1870s.

He received a patent on the

 device on March 7, 1874.

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.