437 - HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY
CHAPTER V.
THE TELEPHONE.
THE transmission of sounds through the agency of electricity, was discovered many years since. Conversation has been carried on by such means for a distance of 300 miles, although 75 miles is as far as it can be satisfactorily done. It is more readily done in cold than in warm weather. A telephonic concert was given in Steinway Hall, New York, in 1877, in which all the music, vocal and instrumental, was executed by performers in Philadelphia, 88 miles distant, and transmitted over the ordinary telegraph wires. Various inventors took part in the development of this remarkable invention, including Professor C. G. Page, of Washington, D. C.; De la Rive, of Geneva; Charles Bourseulle, of Auch, France; Phillip Reis, of Germany; and Elisha Gray, of Chicago. The name now most prominently identified with the Telephone, is that of Alex. Graham Bell, of Boston, who exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, in 1876, an apparatus which reproduced human speech with all its modulations. Others have made improvements of greater or less importance, among whom are Thomas A. Edison, Professor A. E . Dolbear and G. M. Phelps.
The Telephone was first tested in Toledo, January 20, 1875, when the Railway Ticket Office of Win. Gates, in the Boody House, and the Western Union Telegraph Office, corner Summit and Adams streets, were thus successfully connected. For nearly a year previous to that time, simple Acoustic Telephones, consisting of a cord or a wire, with till cups or other vessels answering the double purpose of transmitters and receivers, were operated to a limited extent, some of them covering distances of several blocks. The one named was the first used here which employed a battery and other complete appliances. The next Telephone introduced, and believed to be the first one regularly fixed, connected two stores of F. W. Preston, one on Monroe street, and the other 323 Summit, corner of Walnut. The distance is about threefourths of a mile. The use of the instrument was successful, and did much toward the extension of the same in the City.
In 1878 the rival systems of Bell and Edison Telephones were simultaneously introduced in Toledo by the establishment of separate and competing Exchanges-the former under the management of S. C. Schenck and John M. Wheeler; and the latter under that of James M. McNamar. These had been in operation but a few months, when the two systems were consolidated, and the Toledo organizations passed into the hands of the Midland Telephone Company. Subsequently, the Toledo Exchange became the property of the Central Union Telephone Company, which still owns and manages it. The manager of the Toledo Exchange now (1887) is Mr. John W. Cherry, the entire force of employees being 27 in number. The number of telephones embraced in the Exchange is 1,005, and is extending rapidly. The telephone most distant is that of the Cedar Point Club. 12 miles from the Central Office, corner Adams and Huron streets. The rates now charged are: For business purposes-$60 per annum for one-half' mile of wire; $66 for three-fourths of a mile: $72 for one mile ; and $6.00 for each fourth mile additional. For residences-$42, 345, $48, and $6, respectively. The Exchange is connected with all Cities and Towns in Northwestern Ohio and Southeastern Michigan leaving Telephone facilities. The management of the Toledo Exchange has been, from the first, exceptionally satisfactory to customers, whereby the introduction of that great agency for every department of neighborhood intercourse, has been and is yet, very rapid. Its utilization seems now only beginning in development