It’s Telephone Week on Cool Weird Awesome

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This week we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes that were anything but phoned in.

Two crank telephones in the collection of the Telecommunications Museum in Whyalia, Australia. (Photo by South Australian History Network via Flickr/Creative Commons https://flic.kr/p/btogt4)

In Rural America, Some People Turned Their Wire Fences Into Phone Lines

In 1900, three towns in Indiana used fence wire as makeshift telephone lines. Some of these ingenious systems ran for decades.


Crews move the Indiana Bell central office building to its new location, 1930. (Photo by William H. Bass Photo Company - Ray Hinz Collection, Public Domain, via Wikicommons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84041430)

Indiana Bell Rotated And Moved Its Office Building – And Kept Working There During The Move

The utility started moving its Indianapolis headquarters and rotating the building 90 degrees, all while keeping service going for customers and workers in the building.


Close up on a rotary dial telephone. (Photo by Dan Buczynski via Flickr/Creative Commons https://flic.kr/p/7sPbyN)

The Undertaker Who Developed Automatic Phone Dialing

A phone system that made automated calls – no switchboard operator – began operating in Laporte, Indiana, as the story goes, because of a business dispute between two undertakers.


A Maasai man talks on his phone during a community gathering. Timothy D. Baird/Virginia Tech, CC BY-ND

When Maasai Herders Call The Wrong Number, They May End Up Making A New Friend

When most of us get wrong number phone calls, we get off the line pretty quickly. But not Maasai herders in Tanzania.


Telephone Switchboard Operators, 1900, Salem, Massachusetts. Salem State Archives via Flickr/Creative Commons - https://flic.kr/p/2i2tuGw

39 Years After Making The First Phone Call, Alexander Graham Bell Joined A Transcontinental Conference Call

When most of us get wrong number phone calls, we get off the line pretty quickly. But not Maasai herders in Tanzania.

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Brady Carlson
Brady Carlson
Brady Carlson is a writer and radio host from Madison, Wisconsin. more