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Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.
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TELEPHONE POLES ONCE LINED DOWNTOWN ALBION Albion Recorder, December , 2001, pgs. 14, 15 If you haven’t noticed already, the telephone company has recently complied with new state regulations and made it possible to call our neighboring telephone 517 exchanges toll free. For example, to call Parma all you have to do now is dial 531- and then the rest of the number. No 1-517 is needed. This will certainly help reduce local long-distance telephone bills, although we still can’t call Battle Creek or Jackson for free. Every bit helps, however. Perhaps this new benefit will help increase our toll-free internet choices in town. The saga of how Albion became became isolated from our surrounding communities when telephone systems with their “hub cities” were configured from the 1950s through the 1970s, is a sad one that cost our community residents thousands of dollars in long-distance toll bills through the years. When toll-free calling was offered to communities surrounding Battle Creek and Jackson, Albion was left out of the process for a number of reasons. This certainly was a factor for businesses to consider that wanted to locate in Albion. One hundred years ago this month the citizens in Albion were in turmoil concerning our telephone service and the local businessmen voted to disconnect their phone connections in protest over the way telephone service was handled here. The Albion Recorder reported in its December 12, 1901 issue, “A canvas of practically every line of business in this city has shown that after December 31 no telephones will be left in the business places...On one of the principal residence streets it is said that all phones will be ordered taken out.” The reason why this was being done parallels issues that have been addressed in recent years by state and national regulators regarding monopolies. The article revealed, “A meeting of the merchants was held last Thursday night at the Leisure Hour Club house to talk the matter over. The merchants were of the opinion that the Bell Company should be rebuked for their method of doing business in this city. Objection was not made to the proposed rate of $12 a year nor to the efficiency of the service, but to the fact that when an independent exchange tried to establish itself here, the Bell people dropped their rates simply to freeze them out, and now that the independent company is out of the way, the rates are raised again. Many business men thought that they would be better off without telephones at any price, and are, at least, willing to try it awhile.” Telephone service began in Albion in 1884, and there were five original subscribers. The majority were downtown merchants. The headquarters was located in several downtown buildings, and finally settled at 110˝ S. Superior St. (upstairs) in 1900. Lines laid throughout town converged on this site, and S. Superior St. was filled with thousands of telephone wires and numerous poles. For the record, the poles were made of Idaho cedars, 55 to 60 feet long at a cost of $1 per foot. They were laid in 1898 by telephone foreman Al Wall, and were in use until 1920. The unsightly poles became a political issue early on, even before the 1898 ones were installed. The Albion Recorder reported in its December 15, 1894 issue, “The new telephone poles which are erected on Superior Street are a disgrace. They present the writhing convolutions of a descending boa constrictor...The Council has very properly ordered that no wires be strung on Superior Street until decent poles are erected.” Eventually the Albion City Council required that utility poles and wires be moved behind our downtown buildings, where they remain today. From the Archives this week we present a winter scene of downtown Albion circa 1912 taken by photographer C. M. Erand. It shows the numerous six-tier telephone poles that were once located on the west side of Superior St. They are placed at curbside and were among the most prominent features of the downtown business district. On the right is an unusual scene. It shows numerous sled teams hauling 5,000 bushels of wheat for processing at the mill on S. Superior St. These were hired by area farmer David McKinney (1864-1936) as a means to bring his crop into town under snowy conditions. A very Merry Christmas to all the readers of this column. Share our www.albionmich.com internet site with your visiting relatives, where they can read my historical articles from past years, and leave a message on the guestbook for their old classmates to read. Also be sure and visit the Albion Chamber of Commerce for some last minute “stocking stuffer” gifts such as my Albion Public Schools book or even a Riverside Cemetery tour program.  Winter in downtown Albion, 1910
All text copyright, 2008 © all rights reserved Frank Passic
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