telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (10/15/90)
Mark Earle, a reader in Corpus Christi, TX sent me an interesting photograph of an old (very old!) cord switchboard retired from service some 36 years ago and now on display at the Riviera Telephone Company in Kleberg County, TX (near Kingsville, home of the King Ranch). According to the General Manager and Vice President of Riviera, Mr. Bill Colston, Jr. this board was in service until 1954, at which time they cut over to whatever they are running now on 512-296. Mark noted in his letter that he saw the board when he was at the telco on business for his employer, Corpus Christi State University. The University rents tower space from the telco on a 450 foot tower telco uses for their IMTS service, which seems to be preferred in that part of the country over cellular due to its longer range. The University has a tower on the antenna about half way up which is used to access some remotely located tide measurement systems. In addition, the University has a telephone at the tower blockhouse to control the relay device. In his meeting with Mr. Colston, he got a chance to see the really antique switchboard they had used almost a half-century ago in the area. Unlike 'newer' cord boards, this one has a microphone standing up on a metal pipe into which the operator would speak. The operator used earphones for listening, but there was no mouthpiece on the headset like the 'newer' models. In addtion, this board had the great big (by comparison) jacks and plugs, a good half-inch in circumference, unlike the much more slender plugs in later years. The picture he sent also showed the little metal relays on the top half of the board which would click and drop whenever a subscriber went off hook -- a very early form of call supervision. A large bundle of wires coming out the side of the cabinet were the pairs going to the subscribers. They went out of the board, through a hole in the wall, up into the air and were then strung on poles everywhere to reach the subscribers. I wish there were a convenient way to include the picture he sent me as part of this article, since it was quite interesting and brought back many old memories. I worked at many cord boards in the 1960-70 period, but I never worked at any quite as old as the one shown in the picture he sent me. The ones I worked at all had individual lights for the subscriber lines and lights for the operator's cord pairs for the purpose of supervision. The picture he sent me shows no lights at all -- just the little metal relays along the top part of the board. This leads me to belive the board was probably built shortly after the turn of the century, particularly because of the 'candlestick' mouthpiece and separate hearing piece for the operator, which was common on all telephones of that era. The single piece listen/talk receiver did not come along until sometime in the twenties, and the single piece operator headset came along about the same time. Apparently this switchboard was retired when Riviera converted to dial service in 1954. Thanks to Mark Earle for sending the photo with his letter to me at my post office box (TELECOM Digest, POB 1570, Chicago, IL 60690). I appreciated seeing it and reading a little of its history. Mark can be reached in care of his BBS: 512-885-7564 in Corpus Christi. He is also known as Fido node 1:160/50.0 if you would care to contact him through the net. Patrick Townson