Show GREETINGS TO BUTTE 6 Auspicious Opening bf the Telepnpne Line North VOICES DISTINCTLY HEARD 4 5 HAD CONVERSES WITH TH BUTTE MR Great Achievement of the Becky Mountain Bell Telephone Company Com-pany President Wallace Tells Some Interesting Pacts About Telephone Extension 1 r The novelty of a Salt Laker conversing convers-ing through the telephone with a person per-son in Butte nearly 450 miles distant was experienced yesterday The voices were heard as plainly as though the I talkers were face to face in the same room Any one can do this after today when the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone company will open its Utah eastern Idaho Montana and Coeur dAIene long distance line for public service The extreme length of fie line to Spokane is nearly 850 miles In the eastern states some telephone lines cover twice this length but probably no long distance talking arrangement the can give any better service than Rocky Mountain companys Through the courtesy of President George Y Wallace of the Rocky Mountain Moun-tain Bell Telephone company representatives represen-tatives of the Salt Lake press were accorded the privilege yesterday afternoon after-noon of testing the new line to Montana Mon-tana While preliminaries to the long distance talking feat were being arranged ar-ranged President Wallace and General Gen-eral Superintendent D S Murray entertained the guests with a recital of a few facts pertaining to the expansion of the telephone service Wires Reaching Everywhere There are 413720 square miles of country covered by the Rocky Mountain Moun-tain Bell Telephone company said President Wallace In all 210 cities and towns are connected in the states of Utah Wyoming Idaho and Montana In Utah every town of 500 or more inhabitants in-habitants except twelve has telephonic tele-phonic connection and in a year there willbe only two towns of 500 population popula-tion not connected Every such place In Idaho is served except four and in two years only one Idaho town of 500 inhabitants will be left out Two years hence only nine Montana towns of 500 people will be off the line while noW seventeen such towns are not connected with the long distance system The projected lines in Utah will reach from Nephi to St George and on to Pioche Nev A line projeted eastward I east-ward from Ogden to Evanston will form part of the long distance system between Salt Lake and Denver via Cheyenne and a branch will run through Rich county to the towns in Bear Lake valley Ida Herald Talks With Butte Miner I When the operator called up Butte and got the Butte Miner office Superintendent Super-intendent Murray introduced The Herald Her-ald representative to R M Place a member of the Miner staff The Herald sends greetings to the Miner said the reporter Thanks came the distinct response res-ponse The Miner congratulates The Herald that Salt Lake and Butte are nearer neighbors than ever now Then Mr Place inquired about his old friends Manager Igleheart Joel Priest and Dick Cannon You must be a Chicagoan Mr Place suggested The Herald man I am was the reply I came to Butte the middle of August I wanted to come to by way ofSa1t Lake but Was disappointed Yes Mr Igleheart and Priest and Cannon are old newspaper news-paper friends of mine Congratulate Priest for me tor his splendid scoop story on the arrival of the Utah volunteers volun-teers in San Francisco And thus the conversation ran for several minutes on one topic or another an-other Every word uttered was heard at either end a distinctly as though it were only everyday talking in town through the telephone r Souvenirs of the Event As each of the newspaper men arose from the talking table President Wallace Wal-lace regaled them with a souvenir of the occasion a pretty button from the No 8 harddrawn copper wire used for i constructing the line and weighing 436 j I pounds to the mile i When the newspaper representatives were about to depart Mrs Wallace I Mrs Lymanand Mrs Belden came into in-to talk with a sister of the first two named ladies residing in Butte I How would you like to talk with Mr Lyman away back llama in Omaha asked President Wallace of his lady guests That would be just delightful camo the response Soon Talk Across Continent I Well you can do i in two years from now Mr Wallace predicted When Omaha Is linked with Denver conversation can be carried on from New York to San Francisco via Salt Lake and the northwest You could 1 talk to San Francisco now but the line l is so much in use that local lines will have to be built here and there in I Washington and Oregon to make the through wire practically independent I before the public can set satisfactory service from it Based upon the rate of a cent a mile I I for use of the phone wire to Butte the charge for five minutes Conversation will be 4 but the tariff is graded down in proportion for a les number of minutes min-utes A talk of one minute will cost 170 and for half a minute 85 cents Telephone mileages are less than actual distances Two hundred words a minute min-ute is the average number of words spoken through a telephone Wire Will Be Busy President Wallace anticipates that the new line w ill be patronized liberally by the business public One of the first local benefits he believes will be in Montana people telephoning to Salt I Lake brokers orders for Utah mining stocks after having learned by the instantaneous in-stantaneous method of communication of the tone of the market and range of quotations Statistics show that long distance telephone facilities do not seriously seri-ously affect the number of telegraph messages received and sent but it saves business people time ahd money spent in railroad travel This afternoon Mayor Clark and the mayors of the larger cities in Utah will exchange greetings with the municipal It Intended executives in Montana I was to have Governor Wells congratulate the governor of Montana on the completion com-pletion of the Salt LakeButte telephone tele-phone line but both governors are in New York greeting dmira1 Dewey |