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Freeport, Clute, and Lake Jackson, Texas
TIMELINE:
1914 - Telephone service begins two
years after Freeport was founded. Crank telephones with
batteries connect
to a switchboard.
1931 - "Flash-light," common-battery
service is installed. The user simply lifts the receiver,
which lights a lamp on the switchboard to alert the operator.
Customers are encouraged to call by number, the operator
answering with "Number, please?"
1953 - Western Electric No. 1 Step
equipment is installed to allow subscribers to dial their own
telephone calls. CDO (community dial office) equipment is
installed in Clute City and Lake Jackson. The customer
dials the called party using a 5-digit telephone number,
Freeport and Velasco beginning with a "3," Clute City with a
"5," and Lake Jackson with a "7."
1953 - Operator Toll Dialing allows
Freeport operators to dial or key pulse the called party's
number, directly in to the new equipment rather than passing the
request to a distant operator. When calling subscribers
who have not yet had their equipment upgraded, the call still
must be passed to a distant operator who will manually dial the
number.
1977 - Zero-Plus Dialing is
introduced, allowing subscribers to initiate their own
Person-to-person, Collect, Credit card, and Third-number-billed
calls. Operators are still required to complete calls,
such as Person-to-person and Collect; however, this will be
performed by Houston operators. Sadly, the Freeport
operators' switchboard and office will close.
From The Freeport
Facts on January 2, 1931:
New Telephone
Service Will be Ready Jan. 11
Present indications
point to placing in service modern telephone equipment in
Freeport within the next few days. Unless there's some
unforseen delay, Freeport citizens will be using the new type of
service on the morning of Sunday, January 11.
Such as the
information released to the Facts by H. O. Brickhouse, District
Manager of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.
In commenting on the
cut-over from the present to the new common battery or
"flashlight" type telephone service, Mr. Brickhouse said: "It is
the policy of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company to furnish
the best possible telephone service at the lowest cost
consistent with financial safety. This policy is being
carried out at Freeport where we have remodeled our building,
spent thousands of dollars on replacement and extension of
outside plant equipment such as cable, telephone poles, and
tuning up transmission of every subscriber's line in the city."
The new switchboard
located in the operator's room is of the latest common battery
type. The name 'common battery' means just what it says:
that with the installation of flashlight type of telephone
service, whereby the subscriber simply lifts the receiver to
signal the operator, the current which makes the new type
telephone operate is furnished by a large battery located in the
terminal room of the building. Under the present mode of
telephone operation, it is necessary to connect dry cell
batteries to each telephone in the city. This practice
will be discontinued with the change to the common battery
system.
The new switchboard
has two local and two toll positions. The switchboard now
in operation has a capacity of 300 lines, where the new board
will have, from time of the conversion, a 400 line capacity with
the provision for extending the capacity up as high as 4000
lines in order to accommodate the growth of the city.
"[The changes to
the] new switchboard make it necessary to change many
subscribers' numbers. This will result in greater
efficiency and a much higher grade of service. "Freeport
has outgrown the small-town method of placing calls by name, and
if we are to furnish the high standard of service expected, it
will be necessary that our customers refer to the directory and
place their calls by number," Mr. Brickhouse stated.
Probably the most
encouraging factor in their improvement program by Southwestern
Bell Telephone Company, besides the improved type of telephone
service Freeport subscribers will enjoy, is the fact that the
Telephone Company is building their new plant with an eye on the
expected growth of Freeport. In 1920 there were but 147
telephones here in comparison to 442 today, and the Telephone
Company confidentially expects more than 100 additional
telephones here by 1935 and has planned its telephone program
accordingly.
The dream of a truly
modern telephone service will become a reality within a few
short days.
From The Freeport
Facts on August 7, 1941:
Construction is
Begun This Week on Telephone Bld. Building will have brick
front and be double in size.
Construction work
began Monday here on the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company
building on the corner of Broad and Cherry streets under the
general supervision of W. R. Griffin, of Dallas, construction
superintendent for the S. W. Bell Telephone Company and
with Jim Corbett as the general contractor.
It is estimated it
will take six weeks or more to complete the enlarging and
modernizing of the building.
This telephone
expansion program which will virtually double the capacity of
Freeport's telephone system was recently announced by Harry G.
Brickhouse, district manager of the Southwestern Bell Telephone
Company. Work, which began on the project Monday, is part
of the improvement program which will cost more than $50,000
gross, and the new facilities should be in service before the
end of the year.
The telephone
building here will be double in size, converted from a frame to
a brick structure, and then public office space, operating and
equipment rooms enlarged. The present porch will be
removed and 12x10-foot extension will be added at across the
front of the building. A 12x16-foot extension will be
added at the rear of the building.
The public office
will be moved to the left front portion of the building, where
more space will be available. The switchboard will be
moved to the west side of the building allowing more room for
future expansion, and also providing additional room for other
central office equipment. A new operators' lounge will be
built at the rear of the present structure.
"In addition to the
extra space which will be provided, the brick work will give the
telephone building a new and more attractive exterior,"
Brickhouse says.
Most of the cost of
the expansion program is for the additional switchboard and
other central office equipment needed to handle the sharply
increasing needs for telephone service here. Two more
sections of local switchboard and two additional sections of
long distance board will be added. Also 450 more
subscribers' lines will be installed and 10 more long distance
circuits will connect Freeport with other cities. Included
in the additional equipment for Freeport is a new "main frame,"
where wires from all of the telephones here come together and
are routed to the switchboard.
Brickhouse pointed
to the increase in telephone equipment here as proof of the
city's rapid growth. "Only two years ago," he said, "four
sections of switchboard and 400 subscribers' lines were needed
to handle the daily volume of telephone traffic here. When
we finish the present expansion program the switchboard will
have 10 operators' positions instead of 4, and there will be
1280 subscribers' lines instead of 400 which were in use in
1939."
From The Freeport
Facts on February 11, 1943:
Bell Company Reports
1,880 Phones in Area. Daily Calls Double Last Year's
Number; Cooperation Asked
During 1942, the
Freeport-Velasco area gained more than 700 telephones, bringing
the total number in service on January 1 to 1,880, according to
W. D. Brown, district manager of the Southwestern Bell Telephone
Company.
During this time,
because of rapidly expanding war industries here, the number of
daily telephone calls increased to a phenomenal degree--in fact,
the number of daily local calls has doubled during the past
year, Brown said. The Freeport telephone system now is
handling on the average, twice as many local calls a day and 42
percent more daily long distance calls than a year ago.
"Since cooper,
rubber, aluminum, nickel, and other materials required for
expanding the telephone system here now are more urgently needed
in the fighting fronts, it will not be possible to enlarge the
telephone plant here during 1943 except to meet the
communications needs of the war effort," Brown said.
"As a result, it
will be necessary to handle the heavy wartime volume of calls
with the telephone plant we already have.
"With the telephone
system, both local and long distance, carrying such a heavy
communications load, it is important in times like these that
telephone users conserve and make the best possible use of
present facilities," Brown said. "The public can assist
greatly by not using busy lines for unnecessary calls, by being
brief on calls which must be made, and by always looking in the
directory for the correct telephone number."
From The
Freeport Facts on August 31, 1950:
Four Telephone Lines
Are Added Here to Houston
Four additional long
distance lines to Houston have been added to the Freeport
exchange switchboards, E. D. Peschel, manager of the
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company said.
"The installation of
these lines will assist us in maintaining our completion average
of 1.4 minutes per call which is well under the company average
of two minutes per call," Peschel said.
He said that there
were now 18 long distance lines to Houston, eight to Angleton,
two to Alvin, two to Galveston, two to Brazoria, two to West
Columbia and one to Bay City.
The number of long
distance calls has increased from 600 in January to more than
900 per day, Peschel said.
From The
Freeport Facts on March 8, 1951:
A new, $1,500,000
dial telephone telephone system in Freeport-Velasco-Lake
Jackson will be built by the telephone company if approval is
given to its request for an adjustment in telephone rates
here.
Our plans call for
making dial service available within 24 months and this
program will be carried out unless conditions beyond our
control make it impossible to do so. In any event, dial
service will be made available at the earliest possible date.
The program would
(1) bring modern, fast dial service to all in the
Freeport-Velasco-Lake Jackson area; [and] (2) provide service
to all those who want it as this community continues to grow.
Freeport, Velasco,
and Lake Jackson now have 6,068 telephones, twice as many as
were in service five years ago. We have been adding
telephones here at a rate more than three times as fast as
before Pearl Harbor.
To keep pace with
this rapid growth the telephone company wants to spend
$1,500,000 in Freeport-Velasco-Lake Jackson.
But, despite the
adjustment in rates in October, 1948, the company is losing
money here. During the first six months of 1950, costs
of providing service exceeded revenues by $24,155 here.
A new schedule of
telephone rates is necessary to justify the expenditure of the
$1,500,000 to provide a dial system here.
The new rates
requested by the company would still keep telephone service
one of the better bargains in the family budget. They
would amount to only 33 cents a day for a business telephone,
and from 12 to 16 cents a day for residence service for the
entire family.
We feel sure that
our customers here will be pleased with the modern, fast,
dependable service they will receive from the new dial
telephone system.
Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company
From The
Freeport Facts on June 2, 1952:
F. M. Sanders, first
mayor of the newly incorporated Clute City, performed his first
official act in his new capacity when he turned the first
shovelful of dirt at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the dial
telephone system exchange building this morning at 9:30.
Marking another step
forward in the progress of the town, the new dial building,
which will cost in the vicinity of $20,000, will be frame
construction with brick veneering and will be approximately
40'x34' in size. Completion date on the building has been
tentatively set for 60 to 90 days according to a spokesman for
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.
Al Ripps, chairman
of the Special Events Committee for the Brazosport Chamber of
Commerce, was on hand to congratulate Clute city and the
Telephone Company for this step forward.
Ripps introduced
Rev. V. A. Geeo, pastor of the Temple Baptist Church of Clute
City, who delivered the invocation.
Mayor Sanders was
then introduced by Ripps and expressed his enthusiasm at the
prospects for better service and more telephones for his city,
with the installation of the dial system. Dan Kimbrough,
president of the Clute Lions Club, added his thanks for the
foresight of Southwestern Bell in the beginning of construction
on the dial exchange.
Other speakers
appearing on the program were Chas. Wannall, first
vice-president of the Brazosport Chamber of Commerce, speaking
on behalf of H. A. Jorgensen, president; and Glen Morgan,
principal of the schools in Clute, who expressed appreciation on
behalf of the school and its faculty.
Ed Peschel, local
manager of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, told the group
that in 1944 there were only 34 telephones in operation in
Clute, but at this time there are 650, with many on the waiting
list for service.
Peschel introduced
Jessie Williams, wire chief for this area; Mrs. Bess Prude,
chief operator of the Freeport office who will supervise the
Clute City exchange; M. A. Hoecker, special representative for
Southwestern Bell for this area, and C. J. Lang, building
superintendent for the telephone company.
R. Clyne Thomas,
prominent businessman of the town just about summed up how
everyone felt when he said, "I am about the happiest man in the
world this morning." C. C. Childers, another local
businessman, added his thanks to the telephone company for its
foresight -- and the curtain fell on the second big act in the
progress of Clute City within the past few days.
From The Freeport
Facts on April 22, 1953:
Stage is Set for
Dial Telephone Switch
The stage is all set
for the midnight Saturday opening of Brazosport's new dial
telephone system which will bring unified inter-city dial
service to Freeport, Velasco, Clute City and Lake Jackson.
E. D. Peschel,
manager of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., said today that
more than 8000 telephones are involved.
The new $1,300,000
dial system for Brazosport is the culmination of months of work,
dating back to the spring of 1951 when each of the incorporated
areas passed city ordinances authorizing the telephone company
to proceed with its dial plans, with the provision that new
rates for the improved service would become effective when the
job was completed.
In line with this,
the manager announced the following new monthly rates, to become
effective Sunday, April 26: business telephone, $10.00;
four-party residence service, $3.50; two-party residence
service, $4.00; and one-party residence service, $4.75.
The change will be
made at midnight because few people are expected to be using
their telephones then. About 600 telephones will be out of
service for six or seven hours after the switch while a main
cable is being spliced.
The cutover is
expected to take but a few moments because of the advanced
preparation that has been made at all three of the new offices.
"The most important
thing for our customers to remember," Peschel said, "is that all
telephone numbers in the Brazosport area will change when the
new dial system takes over. Starting Sunday, customers
should start using their new gray directory. It contains
the new five-digit numbers for the entire area."
The manager
explained that Freeport and Velasco numbers will all start with
a "3." In Lake Jackson, telephones will be identified with
a number beginning with a "7" and in Clute city the prefix will
be "5."
"On Sunday," Peschel
says, "throw away your green directories, as the numbers it
contains will be all wrong."
Because all
telephone users here probably are familiar with the use of
dials, it is not expected that customers will have difficulty in
placing calls. Full directions are in the front of the new
directory. One important thing to remember, the manager
said, is that there's no need to be in a rush to dial your
number. You don't have to dial fast and no one is timing you.
The best and surest way is to take it easy and dial carefully.
"The first thing to
in dialing is to listen for the dial tone--a humming
sound--before starting do dial. The hum is the dial
equipment's way of telling you that it is ready to receive your
call. When you hear the hum, simply dial each figure of the
number you want and wait for the other telephone to ring. "That's all there is to it."
If the other
telephone is busy, the caller will hear a fast buzz-buzz in his
receiver. That is the signal to hang up and wait a little
while and then try the number again.
From The Freeport
Facts on August 12, 1953:
Brazosport To Joint
Phone Net
Brazosporters will
come a step nearer [to] intercity dial telephones Saturday when
Freeport joins the Southwestern Bell Telephone Operator Toll
Dialing network.
"At midnight
Saturday your Freeport operators will be connected with the
network. Then they will be able to dial direct more than
15 million telephones in 1,800 cities coast-to-coast," said
Byron Maxwell, manager of the local office.
The new system,
which Maxwell said cost over $1 million and required stringing
over 25,000 miles of wire between Freeport and Houston, will
enable long distance calls to be completed within seconds if the
caller knows the number of the telephone he is calling.
Long distance
operators here have completed training in a special school set
up by the company.
"Although the
operators had to learn new procedures and methods telephone
users will still dial "0" just as before," explained Mrs. Carrye
Collier, chief operator.
From The
Freeport Facts on August 24, 1955:
Don't miss it!
We're holding open houses for the Brazosport area at these
telephone buildings: Freeport -- 1021 W. Broad; Lake
Jackson -- 105 Parking Way; Clute -- 109 N. Shanks. Dates
at all these open houses are the same: August 25-26, 2 to
5 and 7 to 9 p.m.
Plan now to attend
one of the Brazosport Area telephone open houses that will be
held August 25 and 26 in Freeport, Lake Jackson and Clute.
Among the special
exhibits you'll enjoy are: Freeport ... hear your own
voice, just as it sounds on the telephone;
Lake Jackson...
meet "Philbert," the "educated" mouse with the electronic brain;
Clute ... test your hearing ability.
And you'll get an
interesting, close-up look at your telephone system in action.
We believe you'll enjoy it. Won't you come to see us?
Thursday and Friday
-- 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m.
Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company, Byron Maxwell, Manager
From The
Brazosport Facts on May 13, 1962:
Push Buttons, Toll
Dialing in Sight
Telephone service in
Freeport has come a long way since the exchange opened for
business in 1914, LaRue Robinson, manager for Souwestern Bell
Telephone Company reports.
"Today's modern
system is a far cry from the early days," Robinson said.
"Back in 1914, there probably wasn't any 'system' at all,
compared to present-day standards.
Telephone service,
at best, was pretty slow. A call to someone only a few
blocks away was difficult at [the] time, and it often was necessary to
shout into the mouthpiece to be heard at all.
A long distance
call, even as late as the 1920's, was a pretty exciting thing.
If you were lucky enough to have an excuse to make one, you
planned ahead for it for days -- and then probably talked about
it for weeks afterward.
Gradually, though,
the telephone became more and more of a necessity as people
recognized it as something that could make both business and
social life much easier.
By 1930, the number
of customers in Freeport had grown only to 452, but the real
boom came during World War II. The telephone company
manager said records reveal a total of 2,598 telephones here at
the end of 1945, despite war-time shortages.
Telephone
development in Freeport since the war has continued to increase,
Robinson said. By the end of 1950, there were 5,020
customers, and today the number has grown to more than 8,400.
What about the
future? Robinson believes the next 10 years will see a
great many more advancements in communications.
Among these, he
mentioned: (1) Direct distance dialing should become a reality,
and telephone users will be able to dial long distance calls as
easily as dialing local calls. (2) Telephones in the Freeport
area will increase by 60 percent. (3) Additional central
offices and work centers will have to be built to take care of
growth. (4) New-style telephones will be introduced to
make dialing easier. One type under consideration would have
push buttons instead of a dial. (5) The program already
underway to make telephone service more "weather-proof" will be
expanded.
"I'm looking forward
to the 1960's and 1970's," Robinson said. "I have every
confidence that during this period, all telephone users in the
Freeport area will have the telephone service they want and
need, when and where they want it."
In reviewing the
progress made by the telephone company in Freeport over the
years, Robinson said he couldn't overlook one of the most recent
chapters out of the history book -- Hurricane Carla.
"Telephone people
rose to the occasion, and made a record of which they can be
proud," Robinson stated.
"Our Freeport office
was the only one completely abandoned during the storm," he
points out. With water rising and the town being
evacuated, most telephone people were ordered out by the
National Guard and only a skeleton crew remained.
Chief Operator
Carrie Owen, after repeated calls from her boss, finally left
the deserted switchboard about 4 a.m. Sunday. Wire Chief
J. C. Williamson and W. E. Olson, chief switchman, locked the
doors of the telephone office and left the city just ahead of
National Guardsmen about noon.
After the storm,
Williamson and Olson returned as part of an advance party that
had telephones back in service in record time. Miss Own
was also among the first to return to the stricken city.
"They said people
driven from their homes would soon be back and would be needing
their telephones," Robinson said.
W. L. Lindholm,
general manager for Southwestern Bell, had this to say of
telephone people in Freeport and other coastal cities after
Carla struck: "They were tru to their tradition.
Hundreds worked on without knowledge of their own families and
without knowing what had happened to their own property.
All of the planning, all the foresight, and our skill would have
meant nothing without the devotion of telephone people."
From The
Brazosport Facts on August 2, 1965:
New Telephone
Service Numbers
For Numbers not in
Directory .... 411
For Telephone Repair
.... 4102
All telephone
service numbers beginning with "1" have been changed. This
change is necessary to pave the way for the eventual
introduction of Direct Distance Dialing in this area.
Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company. Area Codes are Magic Roads to Distant
Places.
From The
Brazosport Facts on July 7, 1966:
Clute, Brazoria
phones to tie in
Beginning Sunday,
Clute telephone subscribers will be able to call Brazoria's
SWift 8 telephones without long distance charges, Herschel Koska,
local manager for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, announced
today.
Koska added,
however, that the MOhawk 3 numbers on the Brazoria exchange
still cannot be dialed by ANdrew 5 telephones. At the
present time only BElmont 3 numbers are the only Brazosport
numbers that can dial direct the MOhawk 3 numbers. Known
as Extended Area Service, the new telephone service will enable
Clute residents to dial someone in Brazoria's SWift 8 central
office on a locall call basis. They will simply dial the
Brazoria telephone number. SWift 8 customers in Brazoria
can call Clute telephones the same way.
"The addition of
Brazoria's SWift 8 central office means that Clute's 2050 ANdrew
5 telephone subscribers now have local dialing to three other
cities in their general area of interest: Freeport, Lake
Jackson, and Brazoria.
The new service is
the result of negotiations between Southwestern Bell Telephone
Company and the Brazoria Telephone Company which operates in
Brazoria, Koska said.
"Southwestern Bell
is glad to be able to bring this new service to residents of
Clute," Koska said, "because we believe it will be instrumental
in helping promote growth and progress in the general area."
From The
Brazosport Facts on March 30, 1977:
Bell Telephone
announces new long distance service
Telephone customers
in Brazosport soon will have the most modern, efficient long
distance service available, according to Jack Galloway,
Southwestern Bell Manager.
"By April 10,
Brazosport will be served by electronic switchboard equipment in
Houston," he said. "This equipment makes it possible to
place all long distance calls without operator assistance."
The new equipment is
called Traffic Service Position System (TSPS), Galloway said. When it goes into operation for Brazosport area customers, the
switchboard office here will be closed.
"We regret the
necessity of closing the switchboard office in Freeport,"
Galloway said. "But the change will provide improved
telephone service, and it will help our company operate more
efficiently and economically. In the long run, it will
help us hold down rates for basic telephone service.
"Southwestern Bell
has been planning ahead to be sure all employees involved in
this change are taken care of," he said. "We have offered
many operators transfers to either departments or locations.
Others are eligible for retirement. Still others will
elect to resign and take separation pay. We do not intend
to lay off any full time, permanent employees."
The change will not
affect southwestern Bell's business office, installation and
repair forces here, Galloway said.
"With TSPS,
customers can dial all long distance calls, including
person-to-person, credit card and collect calls, and called
placed from a coin phone or billed to a third number," Galloway
said.
"This is called
Zero-Plus Dialing, and it complements One-Plus Dialing, which
already allows local telephone customers to dial their own
station-to-station long distance calls."
With Zero-Plus
Dialing, the customer simply dials zero, the area code (if it's
difference from your own), and the number. The TSPS
equipment automatically records both the number being called and
the number from which the call is placed. Other pertinent
billing information is taken by an operator.
"Many customers in
the area already are familiar with this service, since they've
used it in either cities in Texas, Galloway said. "Most
customers in the state are now served by TSPS."
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