Published: June 15, 2009 01:59 pm      

John Watson: Telephone museum calls up different era

Today we are all wired for communication. We have two or more telephones at home, perhaps two phone lines, one for the phone and one for fax, and each family member has a personal cell phone.

The telephone is truly a modern day convenience. The history of the telephone only goes back to March 10, 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell uttered his famous words to his assistant, Thomas Watson, who was in the next room; “Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you.”

The Spradley Telephone Museum in McGregor has several hundred telephones, many going back to the late 1800s. One of the older phones has a patent date of 1891.

Moe Spradley, who started the museum, worked for Southwestern Bell for 40 years before retiring. Some of the equipment he collected himself.

A family friend worked for the telephone company for many years and kept much of the outdated equipment he had replaced.

He gave Spradley several barrels of this old telephone equipment.

Now that he had all this equipment, he needed a place to put it.

Spradley built a small building at the back of his house for this equipment. He soon ran out of space and added a larger room.

Spradley made a replica of the original Alexander Graham Bell telephone, which is on display here.

There were many of the wall-mounted, battery-operated, crank type telephones.

These were the ones where you would “ring up” your neighbor by turning the handle on the side of the telephone box.

No one had numbers at that time, just rings.

If your friend’s rings were two longs and a short, you would turn the handle two slow turns and a fast turn with a short pause between turns.

This would ring all the phones on the local system.

Everyone on the system knew what everyone’s ring was, and if you wanted to keep up with what your neighbor was doing, you just waited until he answered his ring, picked up the receiver and listened in. The original party line.

There is one story about a farmer who had just put in a new telephone.

A neighbor was visiting and they were sitting on the porch talking when the phone rang.

The neighbor said, “Isn’t that your ring?”

The farmer replied, “I believe it is.”

“Well, aren’t you going to answer it?”

“I got this phone for my convenience, and right now it just isn’t convenient for me to answer it,” the farmer said.

The museum has one of these old telephones with the bell on the outside and a small cap just beneath the bell.

Whenever the bell rings the cap drops down.

If you are gone from home for a while and return to find the cap in the down position you know someone has called.

You can then ring up the operator and find out who called. The original call waiting?

After the old crank type phones came the “candlestick” phones. These had the mouthpiece on a stand and the earpiece hanging on the side of the stand.

To use this phone you held the earpiece to your ear with one hand and picked the stand up with the other and held in front of you.

In 1921 Tom Carter invented the Hush-a-Phone.

This device slipped over the mouthpiece of the telephone and had a large opening you put your mouth into to talk.

This was used mainly in offices so the people around you could not hear what you were saying and would also cut out the office background noise.

There is a small switchboard in one room with an international history.

When the Rio Grande flooded in 1952 it took out the international bridge between the U.S. and Mexico.

This switchboard was flown to Mexico in a Piper Cub, and cable was strung across what was left of the bridge.

The switchboard was set up on the roof of one of the buildings, connected to the police station and local hospital along with the U.S. connection.

This let the U.S. and Mexico stay in touch with each other.

There are several other switchboards there along with three old telephone booths. The light and fan still comes on when the door is closed in two of them.

Bell Labs developed the first hearing aid.

One of the first hearing aids was on display along with its battery pack.

The battery pack is about the size of a paperback novel and was normally strapped to your leg with the wires running up to the hearing aid in your ear.

They have some dial phones on display along with some telephone advertising memorabilia, some of the tools used to repair he telephones and a Sears-Roebuck telephone.

Moe Spradley passed on some time back, and now his wife, along with their son, “Little” Moe and his wife keep the museum going.

“Little” Moe worked for the telephone company for 20 years.

The museum is at 921 West 3rd St. in McGregor and is shown by appointment only.

Call 254-840-2003 or 254-840-3482.

There is no admission charge, but they accept donations to help with operating expenses.



This is a family owned/family operated business.



John Watson is a Cleburne resident who can be reached at texastraveler@sbcglobal.net