Candelstick Telephone - Bryant Pond, Maine
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N 44° 22.704 W 070° 38.777
19T E 368852 N 4915220
The citizens of Bryant Pond, Maine, commemorated their village's tiny, privately owned and operated, last-in-the-country, hand crank magneto telephone system with a giant candlestick phone sculpture.
Waymark Code: WM15HM5
Location: Maine, United States
Date Posted: 01/08/2022
Views: 2
The citizens of Bryant Pond, Maine, commemorated their village's tiny, privately owned and operated, last-in-the-country, hand crank telephone system with a giant candlestick phone sculpture. Along with the 14-foot high, 3,000-pound, steel replica of a crank phone, a cast bronze plaque explains:
This Sculpture By
Gil Whitman
Is Dedicated To The Memory Of
Barbara & Elden Hathaway
Owners of the
Bryant Pond Telephone Company
the very last hand crank magneto
telephone system in the U.S. A.
They purchased the company in 1951
and operated it from their home
as a family business until selling it to
the Oxford Networks Company in 1981,
When it was integrated into the
national dial system.
Gil was Elden's cousin. Though I didn't try, the crank actually turns. It was unveiled in Woodstock’s Remembrance Park on October 13, 2008, almost exactly 25 years to the day after the last crank system call was made on October 11, 1983.
Sources:
Michael R. Hathaway, "Everything Happened Around the Switchboard"
Atlas Obscura
Bangor Daily News