In October 2024, I had the chance to visit The Ellsworth, Maine Telephone Museum. The museum is a an interactive museum that not only consisted of many different kinds of telephones, but also manual cord boards and telephone switches. This is a synopsis of my visit with a write up and a ton of pictures.
A visit that was more enjoyable than I expected!
Have you ever felt like a kid in a candy store? As a telephone enthusiast, that’s exactly how I felt like after visiting the New England Museum of Telephony, also known as the Ellsworth, Maine Telephone Museum. I visited the museum in mid October 2024. It was the off season, so I had to make an appointment. The museum is located on old farmland that was donated to the museum. The museum has a main building and several outbuildings.
Upon my arrival at the museum, I was greeted by a new volunteer Claudia who had just recently joined the museum. She wanted to “tag along” because as a new tour guide, she was learning about the museum. I was then greeted by volunteer David Thompson who conducted the tour of the museum. David is a long time retired telephone technician – and at age 91 is still quite sharp!
When you take a tour of the museum, the goal is to teach you about the history of telephony from the early days of manual cord boards through electro-mechanical switching. This is a fully interactive museum. They want you to use these phones and to “play” with the equipment! The museum has a large number of telephones, and most of them are connected to something – whether it is a manual cord board, a Step-by-Step switch, or a Crossbar switch. And many of these are inter-connected, so you’re able to “dial around” to many other telephones in the museum.
The tour started with the “first” telephone – two tin cans and some string! And then a sound powered telephone. They also have several manual cord boards. David taught me how to be a telephone operator! You would think it’s easy, but it took a bit of practice to place a call through one of the cord boards. Plug in a jack to the phone who is making a call, then plug in another jack to the phone you want to call. Then you had to “ring” the phone. Figuring that out for the first time was a challenge!
In fact, they had multiple generations of manual cord boards. The first one was with a colored “ball” that changes from black to red when a call came in. The second one was when a “door” flipped down to signal the operator that a call was coming in. The last one used small light bulbs to signal an incoming call. Why didn’t the first two cord boards have lights? Easy answer – the miniature light bulb hadn’t been invented yet!
After pretending to be a telephone operator, David showed me a picture of Almon Strowger, the inventor of the Step-by-Step switch. Of course, I knew the story but my wife hadn’t heard about it. They had several examples of Step by Step equipment there. One of the more interesting examples was the first generation switch where you pressed a button to control the switch. The dial telephone hasn’t been invented yet, so that’s how you manipulated the selector! Another example was how digit absorbing selectors worked on a Step by Step switch. If you don’t dial a digit that “cuts in” to another level, the selector resets and goes back down. So if you keep dialing a digit that doesn’t cut in to another level, the selector will keep resetting!
After demonstrating the step by step switches, we moved on to the crossbar switches. The Ellsworth Telephone Museum hosts two Western Electric/Bell System crossbar switches – a Number 3 Crossbar (#3XB) and a Number 5 Crossbar (#5XB). They are very similar in design. The Number 3 crossbar switch is a compact crossbar switch based upon the design of the larger Number 5 crossbar. The Number 3 crossbar switch was designed to be built at the factory and delivered to a central office on a trailer, then slid into place and connected to telephone lines. There were 27 made in total, and only two are left – one of which is at the Ellsworth Telephone Museum. This particular one served the Bradford exchange (327 prefix).
The Number 5 Crossbar once served the Belfast, ME exchange (338 prefix). When it was replaced with a modern digital switch, the switch was offered to the museum. The parts that were saved were just enough to complete a call through the switch, but that’s still several racks of equipment!
The interesting thing about both of these switches is how they provide coin control. Coin control is the mechanism where calls that are placed from pay phones are processed by the switch, and either returns the money or keeps the money depending on the situation. It’s extra equipment that is added on to the switch. In the case at the museum, the pay phones are set in a “coin first” configuration where the phone doesn’t actually work until you deposit money into the phone. Then the phone is provided dial tone from the register-sender and the person can place their call. This seems to be a unique feature that the Number 5 (and Number 3) crossbar switch had. One of the things I used to do was to leave the handset hung up on the phone, deposit a dime, and then the phone will return the dime because the phone was hung up. While at the museum, I did that and the phone (and switches) acted in the same way. But this time I got to hear the register-sender in action to understand the process “behind the scenes”.
At both crossbar switches, I made several calls within each switch and to other switches at the museum. The interesting thing about the Number 3 crossbar was that the tone plant that provides the tones is more ESS (electronic switching system) like than the older Number 5 crossbar mechanical tone plant. The sounds from the Number 3 crossbar sound like an ESS switch, but the ringback, busy, and reorder tones are controlled by mechanical interrupter relays on the switch. You hear them constantly clicking while at the museum!
After the tour in the main building was complete, David then took me over to one of the outbuildings at the museum. The second building we went to had wall mounted displays to show the history of independent telephone companies in Maine, and the advancement of telephone technology over time for these small independent companies. Similar to the main building, they have several displays of older manual switchboards and even a small Step-by-Step switch.
The final building that David took me to was in a small building behind the main building. This was the old Frenchboro, ME central office (334 prefix). This building contains a North Electric CX-100 all-relay switch that handled up to 100 customers. David gave me a demonstration of making calls on that switch and watching the physical contacts on the switch as a call is being placed.
Overall, it was a great visit. I didn’t think I would spend more than an hour at the museum, but I wound up spending four hours there! (“A four hour tour!”) I’m grateful for David and Claudia for spending their Saturday opening up the museum for my behalf and were willing to provide a detailed tour of the museum and the equipment. If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend that you visit! The museum is open on Saturdays from July through September, and by appointment for other times. For more information, visit their website at https://thetelephonemuseum.org
Ellsworth, ME Telephone Museum Pages
My Visit to the Ellsworth, ME Telephone Museum
A write up of my visit to the Telephone Museum in October 2024
Photos of the Main Building
Photos of the main building that shows the history of telephony through the years
Photos of the Maine Telephone History Building
Photos of how independent telephone companies implemented technology through the early years
Photos of the Frenchboro, ME Central Office Building
Photos of the Frenchboro, ME CX-100 switch
Other Pictures
Other photos taken at the museum
Videos of the Telephone Museum
A series of YouTube videos of the Ellsworth, ME Telephone Museum