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Show Interesting Sidelines of Parowan Telephone Retold by Mathesons Editor's Note: The Tollowing is a brief summary of report of the early telephone communication communica-tion system in Parowan given by Mrs. Alice Halterman at an Open House of new facilities which will provide dial service for the area beginning Sunday. Our first long distance service was the Telegraph lines which came through the state. Two homes are still standing in Parowan in which these offices were located. Our mother's sis-' ter, Sarah Gurr Whitney, was one of the operators and the homes were John S. Dalton'g and Charles Adams'. I went to Beaver In the Spring of 1908 in company with Bertha Whitney to receive training In switchboard operation. Those were the days before motels and we stayed at Mrs. Whitney's sister's home, Mrs. Hanks. The first operator In Beaver was Margaret Hurst Bertha Price and Hattie Bird were the two operators there that taught me to operate the switchboard. Father built the first telephone office in Parowan at the side of our home. He furnished it with fuel and lights free so the family could be at home and still have employment. Charles S. Wilkinson, Willard Corry and John S. Woodbury served as managers at various times and all three made their home in Ced?r City. I Walter Panky was the man who installed the equipment. He was from Encampment Wyo. I The first bell telephone was in j Parowan Equitable, the building I where the Southern Utah Dairy' now stands. Our father was manager of the store at the time. He had a telephone installed in J the front room of our home soj people could place long distance' calls after the store was closed and as there wasn't a doctor in Parowan, there were many calls to Cedar City and Beaver. Drs.; Middleton in Cedar City and Mc-; Gregor in Beaver were central for all towns. Barbara Matheson Adams, who was a clerk at the Equitable store, also assisted. She would stay at night and take calls to help out. I Election time became an important im-portant time at the telephone office. of-fice. Bertha and I helped father! with election returns in the store j after closing hours and we waited, wait-ed, it seemed, hour after hour, for the returns from Kanarraville so that we could forward thorn on to Beaver. It was at this time that I gavej the most serious thoughts that being an operaor was okey. ' As to wages, we received $15 a month at first j Other members of the family also related incidents to the operation of the telephone exchange ex-change during its early history, both humorous and serious. Clara Benson related an incident inci-dent when she answered a call from a woman at a station between be-tween Parowan and Pangultch during the winter. When she took the call she heard the word "Hello, "Hel-lo, Anyone, Answer me anyone. John left yesterday and he hasn't has-n't returned." The line was held open to keep In contact with the family and during the time one of the children came to the phone and screamed "My mother Is gone." "We got the to get her mother back to the phone to make her promise not to leave." It was winter and a party left Parowan In search of the father and a telegram was sent to the West Coast and back to Pangultch Pan-gultch to get help from that side of the mountain as well. As a result the father was I found dead near Pangultch Lake, I but the family was picked up from the station and returned to Pangultch. On the light side, Mrs. Benson stated that she began operating for $11 a month and after four and one-half years received wages wa-ges of $14. She also explained that the office was maintained on a split shift on Sundays and holidays. The exchange was . open she said from 7 to 10 a. m. then shut down until 4 p. m. then remained open until 10 p. m. on those davs. |