Telephone Exchange

Everyone’s necessary accessory, the cell phone, represents a huge leap from the beginning of Jacksonville’s telephone service.  The plaque and display windows on the telephone exchange building at the northwest corner of California and Oregon streets tell only part of the story of the telephone coming to Jacksonville. 

After Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876, demand for this novel invention spread.  Initially, pairs of telephones were connected directly with each other.  In 1888, Jacksonville’s first telephone line connected the U.S. Hotel with the Riddle House in Medford.  However, it appears to have been short-lived due to costs. 

Six years later, a syndicate installed a 2-point, 3-instrument Medford-Jacksonville line connecting the G. H. Haskins drug store in Medford with the county clerk’s office at Jacksonville’s County courthouse and the Reames, White & Co. store.  A 5-minute talk cost 25 cents.  By 1899, a regular telephone exchange serving 10 subscribers was established.  

However, there was no direct dialing.  In fact, there was no dial telephone—do you even remember the dial telephone?  An operator switched connections between lines making it possible for subscribers to call each other at any location on the exchange.  By 1918, service had at least doubled since Carrie Beekman was listed as #22 in the Jacksonville telephone directory.

The original telephone exchange was located in the small brick building at 255 E. California Street, more recently occupied by wine tasting rooms. The current California and Oregon street corner was originally home to David Linn’s furniture factory, showroom, and planing mill.  When it burned in an 1888 arson fire, J.C. Whipp’s marble works took its place.  Around the turn of the century, millwright John Lyden expanded Whipp’s display room into the Lyden House which became a popular boarding house and restaurant.  A 1962 Mail Tribune wrote the Lyden House obituary when it was torn down and replaced by the current telephone exchange building.