If one can correctly tap in the many numbers required, it is possible to talk to someone on the other side of the world within a few seconds.  From many locations or from one’s vehicle a conversation can be held in which the message comes through loudly and clearly.  It is also possible for several persons to speak together or not to answer the phone at all – just record the message.  Now innovations are being constantly offered; even as we write.

‘Twas not ever thus.  Telephone service was established in Detroit in 1877.  Only six years after its invention we find the telephone in Brighton.  It was 1882 when the Judson Brothers’ store (N.W. corner of Grand River and Main St.) became the site of the first pay station in the area.  A call could be made to Detroit or Lansing on a line recently installed between these two cities.  Since it is necessary for another to have a phone before a connection can be established it was not a very busy location.

However the original phone, a wire attached to a salmon can on each end, was already in use by Dr. McHench to contact his wife at home.  He’d tap on the can in his office, the sound following the fine wire attached to trees and poles and then shout into his can.

G.S. Burgess, who owned a retail business, 334 W. main, became the first telephone subscriber in Brighton a few years later.  Less than l” thick was the Michigan Telephone Company Directory, published in 1899, listing all the subscribers in the state and in Windsor, Ontario.  There was found G. S. Burgess as the only person in town with a phone.

It was 1904 when Seth B. Jacobs, editor of the Argus at the time, and F.T. Hyne, owner of the F.T. Hyne & Sons Elevator, began selling stock in order to bring a local exchange into being.  One can only speculate on the difficulty these two visionaries encountered in convincing investors of the value of this new contraption.  Probably not too dissimilar to those involved with funding the construction of the railroad, the Plank Road, Carl Conrad and his electric plant (1897), TV entrepreneurs, etc.

When sufficient funds had been acquired the Argus office, 430 W. Main, was the site of the switchboard and the first telephone off that switchboard.  The Argus was assigned the number 10.

In the June 24, 1911 issue of the Argus one might clip out the Brighton Directory of the list of subscribers.  At the risk of tedium we may lost them in the next issue of Trail Tales.

New Telephone Numbers:

James Cord    Charles Musch    Charles Price    Crystal Ice Co.    Rev. G.G.H. Reide   Frank King    Earl Anderson    Will Knight    Clyde Salkeld    Mrs. Samuel McClements   Marvin Macomber    Vincent Maas    George Burgess    Rev Odell    George Peach    J.J. Vanleuvan    J. I. Sutherland   P. Vreeland    John Hunter    Fred L. Russell    Milo Beach    George Glasgow    Roy McDonough    J. B. Jones    Clark Rickett    John Inbawy

133 72:21-2s 136 89-2 103 98-21-3s 139 91-1s-31 70:3s 20:3r 88:3s 74:21.1s 134 63:3s 91:31 88:21.1s 22 132 108 88.11.1s 4 131 90:3s 67:5s 135 24

The June 24, 1911 issue of the Brighton Argus carried this list of telephone subscribers.  Growth was not slow in developing. Not long after establishing the switchboard in the Argus office the growth of the system made a move to larger quarters necessary.  In 1922 lease arrangements were made with the Brighton State Bank, which was under construction, to place the switchboard on the second floor.

---

In that long ago time it was always ladies who were engaged in working the switchboard.  Julie Bergin Brady, Pauline Allen Chenoweth, Pearl Drazic, Dorothy Roberts Foster, Bea Jarvis Gould, Mildred Taylor Jarvis, Virginia Polkow, Clara Smith Sutton and Flossie West, who worked at night, were among those who answered “Central”.

We quote Olive Smith as she recalls her memories of those days: “ My father, George Smith, supervised the Brighton facility which was located over the Brighton State Bank just west of the millpond on Main Street.  He did all the repair work traveling to Pinckney, Cohoctah and sometimes Fowlerville.  Also he covered the office, sent out bills, hiring and paying the switchboard operators. . . my sister, Clara, …. and I . . . also learned to be operators.  The switchboard had 200 numbers with two rows of cords; one to answer ‘Number Please’ and the other to ring the party called.   Our long distance calls were routed through a trunk line in Howell.  Elva Singer was a trunk line operator in Howell.  There were rural party lines with more than one subscriber.  Number 63F4 would be four rings and 63Fll would be one long and one short.  When the fire siren rang, everyone called in and all the operator could do was plug in and say “Taylor’s Barn’ or ‘Stedman’s House’.  No time for “number, please’ ”

During those early days Maude Seymour was the person in charge.  In the winter, to keep the night operator from freezing during a cold spell Roy Newcomb, bank cashier, would see that the furnace was properly filled for the night.

This writer’s limited research indicates each town had its ‘home’ (independent) company.  A merger, in 1913, made it possible for ‘home and ‘Bell’ subscribers to use the same lines, enabling them to call any other ‘ home’ company phone in Michigan.  Prior to the merger merchants were obliged to have two phones.

A new ringing code also came into being;  numbers for calling in place of long and short rings.  Party line subscribers were admonished to familiarize themselves with their own new rings. “ all subscribers must look up and call by numbers as the operator will not to allowed to put up any connection without.  No directory will be in the hands of the operator.  C.G. Rolison, Mgr.”

The Argus reporter continues:  “The new ruling . .  relative to calling by number will be strictly lived up to we understand and you will not be given your party till the number is given, so do not blame the operator.”

An early example of ‘911’ can perhaps be found in the City Clerk’s notice in the September 9, 1931 issue of the Brighton Argus:  “A short time ago a number of houses in town were pilfered by burglars.  We now have a night watchman in town who can be reached any time during the night by calling Central.  In case of future trouble of this kind it is suggested that you immediately call Central, who will get in touch with our night policeman at once.”

Even in those days some of us had ‘ caller I.D.’ of our own invention.  When on a party line if one wished to call a friend at 4151, by dialing 4155 it would ring three times and the person called would know who was calling. These arrangements had to be previously made of course.

Just before WW II the switchboard in the bank was eliminated and the business office, where one paid the bill was moved to the insurance and real estate office of James R. Haynor, 408 W. Main.

---

In 1955, R. H. Engelhardt, at the time area manager for Michigan Bell, pointed out that from those early beginnings the exchange grew rapidly until there were approximately 2800 telephones in the Brighton Exchange. : the present automatic dial system with two-letter, five-digit metropolitan numbers is certainly a far cry from the early days of crank-type telephones.” Englehardt said.  “ But the pioneering spirit of our early Brighton citizens, in accepting a new idea, was the springboard for the tremendous development of our telephone system here.”

 

 

It was in the rural area where the ‘party’ line was in use for the longest period.  A private line would have been impossible or too expensive.  Local historian, the late Bill Pless, writes that (living on Grand River) they were on a party line with every farmer between Brighton and Howell on the same line.  One turn of the crank would get the Howell operator- two, the Brighton operator.  With about 18 on the same line one can imagine the combination of rings (cranks) necessary to call the correct neighbor.  (And one had to be quick to even get the line.)  This would ring in every party line member’s home.  Occasionally one could be sure the neighbors were also privy to the conversation.  ‘Central’ would ring one long ring and when all the receivers came down, the weather report or other exciting news relayed.  There are stories told of alerting the entire neighborhood to an emergency by calling only one person.

By c. 1952, it was fashionable to purchase telephones in a color which was coordinated with one’s decorating scheme.  Also promoted was the suggestion that more than one phone in a home would be a great convenience.  Also about that time the male telephone operator came into being.  You can be sure more than one caller quickly hung up the phone, upon hearing a man’s voice, thinking an error had been made in dialing.  Operators could always tell when school was out.  Students, arriving home, found it necessary to call friends with whom they had been all day and the switch board lit up like a Christmas tree.  Some things never change.

For many years a building just off Cedar Street, near the mill pond, housed the telephone exchange until it became too crowded and obsolete.  The city eventually acquired the building and local dramatists have made good use of it in its guise as the Mill Pond Theater.

The February 9, 1972 issue of the Brighton Argus pictures an architect’s rendering of the new exchange building proposed to be built at 1701 E. Grand River.  It was April, 1974, right on schedule, when Michigan Bell officially opened the communication center and treated area merchants and officials to a lunch and a short program as part of a tour of the facility.  Today that building is for sale, having outlived its usefulness.

 

---

In the 30 years, since direct dialing (000) was established, communication needs forced a change in area codes, locally, from 313 to 810 December 1, 1993.  So we’ve come from a single phone in the Judson Brothers grocery store, to the exchange in the Argus printing office, to the switchboard on the second floor of the Brighton State Bank, to large windowless structures with apparently magical functions going on with little fanfare or our notice.  The telephone has developed from turning a crank to having multiple means of communication in one’s home, office or vehicle.  The directory has grown from a list in the local newspaper to one that weighs over 2-1/4 pounds.  (A valid criterion indicating change?) The business directory pages were instituted with the first printed directory.  The 1921 issue was half full of the ‘yellow’ pages, altho’ they weren’t yellow.  These have become a means by which one may locate a needed product or service.

Before WW II Dick Tracy wore a wrist radio. (Surely the writer is not alone in remembering that cartoon.)  Many felt the cartoonist’s imagination was quite erratic.  Today personal ‘beepers’ have replaced Dick’s wrist radio.  This writer’s grandchildren make light of the study necessary for her to fully utilize the many possibilities of her telephone.  Touch one button to converse, another to relay recorded messages, another instantly connects with an often called number without dialing, etc., etc., A recently purchased piece of telephone equipment is near obsolescence by the time it’s installed.

Late local historian Bill Pless writes of several anecdotes concerning early telephone use such as the farmer living on his father’s farm.  The father didn’t want the telephone installed and complained mightily when the son and wife had one put in.  Thinking to quiet his complaint they finally got him to call his friend, Seth, who lived about a mile away.  After shouting “Hello, Seth!” the old man stepped back.  The son encouraged him to continue.  “I’m just waiting for that hello to get down to Seth’s.”

Another story concerns a self-made successful farmer and his sister who were enjoying the fruits of their labor and wanted everyone to know.  A telephone and a furnace were installed and a car purchased; at a time when few had such luxuries.  He came to town and called his sister from several stores where other customers could overhear his part of the conservation.  “Did the telephone ring loud enough?” he asked.  “ Is the furnace operating all right?  Did you adjust the chains to the draft and damper?  Is the house warm enough?”  Then he’d tell her the car was running splendidly and made every hill in high gear.  Frequently seen wiping dust off the windshield and fenders and openly admiring the vehicle, neighbors would often cause hi some concern by deliberately parking close to his car.

Compiled by Marieanna Bair, with thanks to Bill Pless’ writings, clippings from the Brighton Argus and Livingston County Press, Olive Smith Griffin, Alice Newcomb, Jane Tomlinson, Janice Field and Theresa Swiecicki.