Evening Star Newspaper, June 25, 1933, Page 68

;I'elephone Company’s Fiftieth Anniversary Chesapeake &° Potomac Co.’s Half Century of Progress and Development — Proneer I BY JOHN CLAGETT PROCTOR, F Washington increases in population in the next 50 years to the same extent that it has in the past half century, it will be about three times as large as it is now, and the chances are that it will be crowd- ed to the wall, and nearly all the nearby beautiful villa sites will be occupied by apart- ment buildings or rows of block houses. In 1880 there were in the District of Cclumbia 177,624 persons, of whom 59.402 were colored, or about one-third of the total. Today the colored ‘population is about one-fourth. There is a marvel.us difference between the Washington of 50 years ago and now, just as there will be an astounding difference, no doubt, between the present city and what we may expect it to be in the future. Poeple frequently complain that all the bargains in real estate are gone, and this is probably largely true so far as city property is concerned. but if home seekers are willing to pioneer and go into the far suburbs, just as their parents in many cases did before them, when they have grown old they can at least have a home to call tneir own, and from which they cannot be ejected. Indeed, there is not an old-timer in the city but who will relate when he might have bought property a few deccades ago that today, in his old age, would be of sufficient value to make him financially comfortable. Of course, so far as the District of Colum- bia is concerned, such obportunities will cease when the 10-mile square is built up; but then, Maryland and Virginia will quite likely have bargains for sale, just as they have now. But the distance from the center of the city to the suburban line is gradually being shoved back, and this distance will have to be trav- eled, although the airplane will then, quite likely, be the sole method of travel, unless it shall give way to some undcveloped way of Just catapulting us through the air. To many this may secem ridiculous; but what would have seemed more far-fetched to us 50 years ago than to be told that in a few years it would be possible for one to talk around the world with himself? And yet we now know this can be done, and we think nothing of it. Witchcraft then had about died out, except with some poor, ignorant people, and yet the best of us, had the radio bcen suddenly sprung upon us at that time, would have looked upon the proceeding as canny and spocky. The stupendous development, improvement and progress throughout the world during the past half century is almost unbelievable, and Wash- ington has enjoyed its share. Of course the writer does not include in the progress made the unjustifiable political inequality, discrim- ination and handicap we suffer. But other- wise the advancement has been all that might have been expected. ; The young perscn whose personal knowledge of Washington dates back only for a few dec- ades scarcely realize the extent to which the city has really devleoped. For instance, to him Hains Point and Potomac Park mean noth- ing, except that the park is a pleasant place to visit in the Summer, perhaps to play a nice game of golf, to see the Army boys engage in pony polo, and in the Spring to view the world-famous Japanese cherry blossoms. But to those who have seen Washington grow, a glance at this section of the city means more than what we see today. for it carries them back to the days of the slashes and marshes, to reed birds and ducks, to mosquitoes and, naturally, to chills and fevers and quinine. But things have all changed since then. Outside the sea wall, upon occasions, the can- vasback duck and ortolan in great numbers rest unmolested upon the water, while the reed bird has found other feeding places, and the old double-barreled shotgun has gone to decay or is hid away in the attic as a reminder of the past. Indeed. wonderful strides have been made here during the last half century, for not only have beautiful parks been developed where once lurked illiess and disease, but even meth- ods of living and travel and everything else, it seems, have given way to a newer, a more comfortable and a greater Washington. Many things have contributed toward making it the John A. Remon, general manager Ches- apcale & Potomac Telephone Co. and president of the Alexander Graham Bell Chapter, Telephone Pioneers of Umerica. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGFON, D. €, JUNE 25 1933 Members and Early Operators. Burnet L. Nevius, first telephone operator in the District of Columbia, dials a connection on the inauguration of the dial system service in Washington. famed city beautiful, and many inventions are responsible for our changed conditions in liv- ing &nd our added pleasures of life. NE of the greatest inventions we have been privileged to enjoy, and which perhaps our ancestors never dreamed of, is the tele- phone, though even this may not appeal to us in an extraordinary way unless we lived before its invention and have grown up with its de- velopment. Just about 50 years ago, on June 30, 1883, the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephonc Co. was incorporated and during the coming week the company is celebrating its golden anniversary. Of course the telephone had been in use here several years prior to this date, but even as it stands, the charter of 1883 is the oldest— with one possible exception—of any now in force, and which makes the local company probably the oldest in existence. At first the telephone here was regarded as quite a novelty, just as it had been the year before when it was introduced and exhibited at the Centennial at Philadelphia by its inventor, Alexander Gra- ham Bell, who was to all intents a Washingto- nian, he having married the daughter of Gar- diner G. Hubbard, who in 1878 was acting as counselor before congressional committees, with his residence at 1332 I street. In October, 1877, the first practic:l use of the telephone was made in this city, when a private line between here and the office of the chiet signal officer of the Army at Fort Whip- ple, now Fort Myer, Va., was installed. It was a Bell telephone, and from which the many thousand now in use here have been developed. The first company formed here was thLc National Telephonic Exchange, which was founded in 1878 by George C. Maynard. he having secured the agency in September, 1877. This was later superseded by the National Capital Telephone Co., and this in turn was absorbed 50 years ago by the present organi- zation, of which The Star of January 23, 1883, has this to say: “An important change was eflected yester- day and today in the management of the Washingtoni telephone company. The controll- ing interest 'has been purchased by a syndicate of Eastern practical telephone men, but a large proportion is still held by Washington people. Mr. J. W. Thompson, who owned one-quarter of the stock. has disposed of his entire inter- est, and Mr. H. D. Cooke, who owned the same amount, has sold out a portion of his stock. Messrs. J. B. Edmonas and H. A. Willard dis- posed of all their stock to the same parties, giv- ing them a controlling interest. Messrs. Ed- monds, Thompson and Willard today resigned as members of the board of directors, and H. B. Lytle of Boston, A. P. Sawyer of Newburyport, H. W. Frost of New Haven and W. O. Fisk of Lowell, Mass., the new stockholders, were elected in their places. Messrs. H. D. Cooke, C. C. Glover and H. S. Cummings of the old board are members of the new. The new man- agement say that it is their intention to give a better service now than ever before and at the same time extend their connections and facilities. They will first build a line to Balti- more, and the erection of trunk lines to other points throughout the country are possibilities in the near future. The syndicate has secured the controlling interest in telephone companies in various places and their object is to form one general company which shall control tele- phones in much the same way as the Western Union does the telegraph wires. The new man- agement deny that they have any connection with the Western Union Co. and further say that this movement is not in conjunction with the Bell Telephone Co., nor is controlled by it. They say that they are practical tele- phone men, who see the possibilities of the future for its use, greater, perhaps, than is now the case with the telegraph. The price paid for the stock was very liberal, being 130. The stock has been selling at 108 and 110.” The headquarters was then 1420 New York avenue, now most likely covered by the pres- ent Evans Building, and the first officers were: President, Morris F. Tyler, whose residence was New Haven, Conn.; vice president, A. G. Davis, Baltimore, Md.; secretary, Warren Choate, 411 Spruce street, LeDroit Park; treasurer, Henry D. Cooke, former Governor of the District of Columbia, and H. B. Lytle, general manager, Boston, Mass. At the time of the incorporation of the present company there were only 896 telephones in Washington and in the entire territory of the local company, which embraced a large part of Maryland, there were but 2,354 speak- ing instruments which were connected with wires strung on poles, though in the first intro- duction of the telephone here the wires were strung from roof to roof in the downtown sec- tion, but as the system expanded poles had to be resorted to, and these poles, with their numerous wires, soon proved one of the city's greatest problems, for as the demand for tele- phones increased, so did the number of wires, until the condition not only became menacing and dangerous but quite unsightly as well. Some of the poles were as much as 80 feet high, and one in particular that stood at the corner of Twelfth street and Constitution avenue, near the Mall, was 88 feet in height and towercd above all else around it. It soon became evident that some oth:r method of stringing wires would have to be resorted to, and so, in the Spring of 1884, teleph ne wires were first placed under ground. This system, which ran from the central office on New York avenus up Fifteenth street and Vermont avenue to L street, cin- sisted of two 100-wire and four 50-wire cables and 60 loose wires, some insulated and others bare, threaded through porcelain cleats. These loose wircs were laid in a wooden b x over the cables and the box was filled with tar, which most naturally was expected to harden and prctect both cables and loose wires and to insu- late the latter. But, alas, this tar was like so many people, in that it did not “stay put,” and althcugh the cabies worked fine, yet no voice was ever heard over the loose wires. The telephone company, like all other or- ganizations, has not been wikbout its troubles and its loss in experiments no doutt would run into many thousands of dollars, and so it was in this case, for the laying of wires in the method referred to did not wbrk out at all as expected. for as scon as the hot weather set in the tar began to soften and to ooze through the pave- ment at low points in the street, and it is said that for a long time it was necessary to cart away loads of this tar from the streets almost weekly. However, though imperfect as it proved to be, yet just this limited stretch of under- ground construction constituted at the time one-fifth of all the underground cable in the United Statcs. N 1887 the central office moved to 619 Four- teenth street northwest, site now covered by Federal-American Bank, and this proved ade- quate for the company's needs until 1900, when a scceond central office, known as “East,” was opened at 23 B street northwest. A few months afterward, in March, 1901, the “West” central office was opened at 1232 Thirty-first. George- town. Two years later the “North” central office was opened at Fourteenth and R streets, and the following year the company c.nstructed a six-story building at 722 Twelfth street, which was known as “Main.” Since then the growth has been continuous. In 1904 “Lincoln” central office was established at 629 B street northeast; “Cleveland” and “Columbia” were added in 1908, and the “Frank- lin” central office at 722 Twelfth street came into being in 1917. Since the World War five manual central offices have been added to the list, “Adams,” “Potomac,” ‘“Atlantic,” “Decatur” and “Georgia.” The dial system has not only made a big change in equipment, but has also resulted in a change in stations, and *“Main” and “Franklin” have been discontinued and their subscribers are now served by the down- town dial offices, “District,” *“Metrcpolitan,” “National” and “Sterling,” located in a modern seven-story building at 730 Twelfth street northwest. The “Cleveland” subscribers are taken care of by the new “‘Cleveland-Emerson™ dial central offices, at 4268 Wisconsin avenue. Washington has today seven dial central offices and eight manual offices, to which are connected more than 177,000 telephones, or about 334 telcphones for every 1,000 persons of the District’s population. Only one city in the world, San Francisco, has a more extensive telephone development. In Washington the telephone company c¢mploys rcgularly 3,000 men and women. The majority of people look upon the tele- phone company simply as an organization that furnishes telephones over which cone may transact business, attend to necessary matters or just gossip, but there is another field it has entered in the last decade, and of which the public knows little, and this the writer realized when he recently visited the main office on Thirteenth street, where he had the pleasure of being shown around by Mr. R. H. Davidson. Upon this occasion the radio room—if such it might be called—struck him most forcibly, since from this point all the local radio sta- tions and those to the south of Washington are supplied with programs from New York and elsewhere when required. This room is on the top floor of the building and is open day and night. A single wire brings the program to this point, where it is sent on its way over as many wires as may be necessary. This is why we get such little static over our local sta- tions and demonstrates the big part the tele- phone wires play in our radio programs, for which we seldom give the company credit. Of course, somebody pays for this—but we do not. ODAY we unreservedly acknowledge Alex- ander Graham Bell to be the inventor of the Bell telephone, but Mr. Bell—the originator and pioneer—was not without his troubles and difficulties in the early days when he was try- ing to sell his invention to the public, and then, even after he had got it in operation and on its way to success, he still was forced to fight off those who would have gladly taken from him the glory he was entitled to and the financial reward due him from his ingenuity and Jabor. Looking over The Star of January 26, 1881, the writer came across this item of interest which illustrates just what Mr. Bell had to put up with for quite a while before it was definitely settled that the hcnor rightfully be- longed to him. The article rcads: “History of the Telephone Company. “The Bell Company and the Peoples Company. Contest in the Courts Between the Two. “Yesterday counsel for the People's Tele- phone Co. of New York filed in the Patent Office their side of the application of the Daniel Drawbaugh application for a patent for telephone. This opens up a peculiar and interesting phase of affairs in this connection just now and brings to light the history of the companies. “The first telephone patent was granted in 1876, and since then the patents of Gray, Edi- son and Bell, with the Blake transmitter, has been consolidated into what is known as the Bell American Telephone Co. The stock was o o Col g John H. Miller. a telephone pioneer who moved the telephone from landing to landing as the worl: on completing the Washington Monument progressed.