Hello Central Chapter Thirteen “Hello girls” made their advent in Holt County around the turn of the century, when the people welcomed that marvelous invention, the telephone. Vac Randa of Verdigre, over in Knox County, was the first to build a telephone line into O’Neill, where he installed a switchboard in the Gilligan drug store about 1900. Vac walked four hundred miles in the course of constructing the thirty mile line, as he covered its length many times before it was done. The annual rent, per subscriber, was twelve dollars, but if the subscriber bought his own telephone and paid for a year’s service, it was only ten dollars. The telephones were the old wall type, and new dry cell batteries to operate them were furnished free.
One-wire telephone lines proliferated over the next few years, criss-crossing the county from end to end. John Bauer helped organize a company and built a line on Cache Creek in 1903. The Celia Independent Telephone Company was organized in 1905, with $3000 subscribed by the participating farmers. The company’s two hundred shares were sold at $15 each. There were eighteen families on the line in the beginning but in time it grew to cover a radius of seventy-five miles and provided service to dozens of families. Most of the early lines were owned and built by the farmers they served, and most were quite primitive compared to the lines of today. The poles were trees, cut, trimmed and hauled from the nearest source of timber. If their tops were ten or twelve feet above the ground they were considered a “high line.” The settlers dug jtel Picture of one of the first telephone crews in O’Neill. The ladies are probably the wives of two of the crew. The driver of the team is Will Hinze. Courtesy Sarah Michaelis.
the post holes by hand and strung and stretched the wires.
In a few instances barbed wire fences were made to serve as telephone lines. The Inez community line was of this type, with one of its three wires insulated by placing a piece of rubber, cut from an old rubber boot, under the wire where it was nailed to the post. “It worked fine,” wrote Mrs. Julia White, “until somebody had to 104 Mrs. Hugh O’Neill, lady with the “marvelous phone voice” who operated the Anncar switchboard. Picture taken in 1898.
fix his fence,” and the insulators weren’t always replaced, or properly attached.” The first South Fork line was simply “the middle wire of a barbed wire fence.” Since green poles were used in many of those early lines, some took root and grew into healthy trees. John Bauer states that, on the Cache Creek line, “there are still big cottonwood trees here and there that grew from the poles.” All the families on a single line could talk to each other simply by ringing the phone with the little handle or “crank” on the side of the box. Each family had its own ring, a “long and a short,” “two longs,” “three shorts and a long,” or whatever. But one line could not efficiently serve more than eighteen or twenty telephones and when that maximum was reached another line was built to take care of the overflow.
Switchboards or “centrals” connected these various lines and if one wanted to talk to someone on another line he had to “go through Central.” In time most of the county lines ran into the various towns, and the towns in turn were connected by direct lines running between them. By having his call transmitted through several switchboards a person could, theoretically, talk to someone clear across the county; actually it was often hard to do as the signals seemed to lose their power after several connections had been made.
The customary ring for “Central” was one “long.” There was also the “general ring.” This was either one very long ring or a series of six or eight short rings. When the general ring went out over a line everybody took down their receivers. Although Central usually put out the general rings, anyone could do it. In any case the purpose was to announce something of general interest to the community, such as a meeting, a box social or other entertainment, a fire or an accident.
No one can ever sum up the worth of the service accorded villages and communities by those dedicated switchboard operators. They seldom, if ever, left their posts unattended, day or night; for most of them felt that, in case of accident or catas- trophy, the availability of the operator might save a life. Neither did they ever stint on their service at the board. At the time of the prairie fire north of Inman the Albert Clark family, who had the switchboard in their home, kept it open all night, receiving and giving out reports on the big fire.
Central, usually a housewife, was also a fount of information of many kinds. The patrons on her lines reported news to her. When someone else called to see if she’d heard ___ , she usually had— and could put out the latest bulletin on the subject. If a woman went to town, then needed to get a message to someone at home on the farm— and couldn’t raise anyone when she tried to call, she simply gave the message to Central and asked her to keep trying until she “caught someone in the house.” When a twelve-year-old girl, attempting to prepare the family supper in the absence of her mother, couldn’t remember how to make gravy, she called Central and got the instructions she needed. If someone was expecting an important long distance call, but wasn’t going to be at home at the time the call was to be made, he called Central and told him where he would be, and Central simply switched the call to the new number. Many times when a caller tried to get a number and got no answer, Central was able to call around to several possible places where the callee might be, and often locate him; for that was how well many a switchboard operator knew the people on her line and where they might be at a given time.
Before the time of radio and daily weather reports, most towns received this information by telegraph at the depot. The people of the Celia community arranged to get the daily weather forecasts by having the Wilson Drug Store in Atkinson call the report to Central (Mrs. Conrad Frickel), who then rang a general ring and relayed it to all on the line.
Up at Anncar on the Niobrara Mrs. Hugh O’Neill ran the switchboard. “She had a marvelous ‘phone’ voice,” wrote one of her patrons, “that could quiet one’s fears. She would stay on the ‘switch’ for hours, at all hours of the night, to put through emergency calls, and in the meantime be soothing one’s anxiety.” 105 The Anncar line was built because of an emergency in Mrs. O’Neill’s own home. Hugh O’Neill’s mother lived with the family and one season both the old lady and one of the O’Neill sons, Falim, were gravely ill. The family doctor lived in Spencer, fifteen miles away across the river and each time that he was needed someone had to ford the river and make a hurried trip on horseback to summon him. Dr. Skelton then drove hard with his team and buggy to the Whiting bridge, where O’Neill met him with another team and rig. While the doctor’s team rested at the bridge, O’Neill drove him as fast as possible to Anncar, then took him back to the bridge on the return trip.
On one of his trips to Anncar the doctor said, “Hugh, if I could telephone to get a report on Falim’s condition I wouldn’t need to come so often. Why don’t you build a line to Spencer?” That remark resulted in the lines that Hugh O’Neill eventually built, first to Spencer, then to Maple Grove, Leonie, Phoenix, O’Neill, Em-met, Badger, Butte, Catalpa and other sites.
Mr. O’Neill cut his poles from the ash and elm groves that grew on his land along Turkey Creek, and when he couldn’t get regular wire he, too, used barbed wire fences across pastures. For this reason it was often called the “fence pole line.” O’Neill’s twelve-year-old son, Carroll quickly learned to install and repair telephones and often traveled with his father, attending to that part of the work as the lines crept across the prairie. Falim, too, as soon as he had recovered from the rheumatic fever that had occasioned the doctor’s visits, also learned to service telephones and lines and the brothers handled the business for most of northern Holt County for more than fifteen years, or until the poles rotted off and the expense of maintaining the lines became prohibitive and the service was discontinued.
At Dorsey Mrs. James Wiley was the telephone operator for more than thirty-three years. Mr. Wiley not only kept up the line but filled the office of Dorsey postmaster from 1917 to 1942, after which Mrs. Wiley tended both the switchboard and the postoffice. There was a switchboard at the Howard Oberle farm, another in the Opportunity store and one at Redbird. It was, however, impossible to call O’Neill from any of these places with any satisfaction until 1959. For those early lines were subject to many ills. Wherever the lines on their short poles crossed over roads they were often torn down by a load of hay or a piece of machinery passing under them. Then too, if the batteries in one or more phones on the line were weak, there wouldn’t be enough power in the ring to boost it all the way to the telephone being called. When that happened someone on the line in between, hearing the faint ring, usually “came on” and gave an assist by ringing the signal wanted. Ice, snow and high winds, then as now, could put the lines down, sometimes for long distances. In very busy seasons the line might be “out” for several days, or until someone could take time from field work to make repairs.
One could call anyone on the same line without ringing Central, and every ring sounded in every home, thus alerting all on the line. Anyone could “listen in” or join any conversation in progress, so there were no secrets in any community, once the information went out over the line. This feature brightened the social life of all communities and brought the people closer together. If there was serious illness in a home, or something exciting or unusual going on, that family ring was sure to bring down almost every receiver on the line. That way all could keep up on the latest bulletins without bothering the family. Any ring late at night was generally considered an emergency ring and neighbors would hurry to the telephone, not solely out of curiosity but to see if there was anything they could do to help.
When, one midnight in January, 1929, a general ring went out over the Inman and South Valley lines, sleepy subscribers rushed to their phones. The news they heard brought some forty men to the August Krueger farm yard in a matter of. minutes. Old Mr. Krueger had gotten out of bed and stepped outside. When his listening family did not hear him come in again in a few minutes they got up to see why. He had disappeared— and that was when the general ring went out.
With lanterns and flashlights the neighbors searched through the yard and buildings. No trace of the lightly clad old man could be found and they were unable to pick up his tracks in the already well trampled snow. The night was clear and very cold, with no wind. After some time a group of searchers paused near the house to discuss what to do next. At that moment a weak, dispairing cry floated in on the still, cold air. It seemed to come from a hay meadow some distance to the north— and there they soon found the old man, unconscious in the snow. Except for the loss of some toes, he recovered. Like SOS, May Day or Man Overboard, the old party line general ring served its purpose and its time. Its greatest disadvantage was the “long- winded” persons, common to every line, who monopolized it for long periods of time every day. If some busy patron needed to make a business call he either had to wait, and fume, or “break in,” something most people did not like to do. It took awhile to learn to use the telephone. Some people persisted for some time in shouting into the mouthpiece, subconsciously trying to lift their voices across the intervening distance. And some were puzzled as to what to say next, the first time they called Central and she said “number please” instead of “hello.” Mrs. A. F. Parkhurst writes of the frustration experienced by some of their neighbors on the line (north of Stuart) when her mother, Mrs. Charles Morse, visited on the phone with two other ladies. The three women talked in German and none of the listeners could understand a word. Some soon gave up in disgust, others stayed on, hoping to catch a name at least, but the German ladies DESCRIBED their subjects instead of naming them. After thirty years without phones, following the discontinuance of the Hugh O’Neill lines, northern Holt County rural residents, under the leadership of Carroll O’Neill, cooperated with Northwestern Bell Telephone Company in bringing modern and permanent service to the area. But in the process, when the Lynch exchange converted to the dial system, Dorsey, Star, Page and other districts were left without connections to any major town.
To correct the situation, the people affected held meetings to see what could be done. There were federal funds available for such contingencies and it was hoped they could soon have connections with outside lines; but about half the people wanted the connection to be with O’Neill, where they did most of their trading and business, while the other half wanted to go to Lynch, where their doctors lived and where their children went to high school.
After long and sometimes heated debate, the Star group decided to forego government assistance and build their own line to O’Neill. Organizing themselves into the South Star Company, the farmers raised the money for materials and agreed to donate their labor. To meet Bell specifications the line had to be built with two wires, with carriers. “As usual,” commented one member, “we had some real workers and some who never showed up until the work was all done. And it made no difference if it was a holiday or what, those who worked were determined not to be without telephones any 106 longer than they could help, so were right out there setting posts and stringing wire.” Back in 1900 the settlers had built the original lines under the same plan, but the new line, built in 1959, went up much faster. For the first one the workers had dug the post holes by hand. For the new one they used mechanical posthole diggers, and employed mechanical farmhands to lift the tall poles, and loaders to stand on while they attached the carriers and wires.
During the 1960’s other lines over the county were converted to dial systems, underground cables and other modern systems until, on December 1, 1973, Ken Werner, president of the K and M Telephone Company, pulled the switch that put all Chambers subscribers onto an underground cable, one party system; ending the era of party lines and Centrals. The Amelia area, also serviced by the K and M Company, had laid underground cable in 1965, placing its fifty-four subscribers on two- and four-party lines. The old line, known as the Lone Tree Line, constructed soon after 1900, had soon had so many subscribers that it had to be divided into several lines. The history of those old lines, related in the Norfolk Daily News, February 6, 1975, is very interesting. At one time some of the lines had been the barbed wire-fence post variety, and on the line from Amelia to Atkinson patrons could make a LONG DISTANCE CALL FOR FIVE CENTS. Today Chambers has twenty-seven circuits to other towns and direct dialing is available to all.
Amazing and convenient as all this is, there are still a few subscribers who look back with nostalgia on the good old days when Central looked after everybody on her lines. The neighborliness has gone out of the telephone business.
Radio first came to Holt County in the form of amateur sets, some of them home built. The first owner-operators were Jerry and Ken Schultz of Atkinson; Hubert Kruse of O’Neill and Ken Werner of Emmet. Eugene Baker, Stanley Elkins and others from Chambers, and Leonard Davis, Matthew Beha, Larry Hayes and George McCarville of O’Neill soon followed. The radio amateur was the forerunner of the radio station, as we know it today, and of the sheriff and police radios’all of them sometimes making the only means of communicating with the outside world. When telephone lines are down (as in the blizzard of ’49) amateur operators stay on the air night and day until service is restored. The amateur’s motto has always been “We are ready to help at any time. We handle messages throughout the world. There is no cost for service.” The first radio station in the county went into operation in November, 1955. Bob LaRue, formerly of KOA in Denver, was the owner, builder and operator of KVHC, the “Voice of Holt County.” Operating at 1400 kc, with a power of 250 watts fulltime, it was located at 251 North Jefferson Street. After the Sun Broadcasting Company of Holdrege bought the station in 1957, they changed the call letters to KBRX, increased the power to 1000 watts and became a daytime station only.
The station changed hands several times over the years and, in 1973, added an FM facility. Both facilities operate simultaneously from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. and from 6 P.M. to 10 P.M. on FM. Known as “The Voice of the Ranch Country,” the system covers north central Nebraska and south central South Dakota.
Several Holt Countians had television in the 50’s and 60’s. Although the sets and their accompanying towers and antennas were expensive,