The following are pictures of Central Office Buildings and other miscellaneous pictures throughout the former North Pittsburgh Telephone Company (now Consolidated Communications of Pennsylvania) territory.
Cooperstown
Cooperstown is a small central office that serves the majority of Middlesex Township and the southern portion of Penn Township in Butler county. It is located on PA Route 8 on the west side of the road just north of intersection of Route 8 and the southern arm of PA Route 228.
Originally a Step by Step office, it now houses a Nortel Remote Switching Center
Prefixes: (724) 898
Old EXchange Name: TWinbrook-8
Criders Corners
Criders Corners is a medium sized central office that serves the majority Cranberry Township, Seven Fields Borough and the western part of Adams Township in Butler County and the northern portion of Marshall Township in Allegheny County. It is located in Cranberry Township on a side street off of modern PA Route 228 near the interchange with Interstate 79.
Originally a Step by Step, this office later housed an Automatic Electric #2EAX and now a Nortel Remote Switching Center. This was originally the VIneland-4 (844) exchange.
Prefixes: (724) 720, 741, 742, 772, 776, 778, 779
Old EXchange Name: PResident-6
Curtisville
Curtisville is a small central office that serves the majority of West Deer township in Allegheny county. It is located on a side street in a residential neighborhood just off of Saxonburg Blvd. It is the only central office that has a fence around it.
Originally a Step by Step office, it now houses a Nortel Remote Switching Center
Prefixes: (724) 265
Old EXchange Name: COlfax-5
Freeport
Freeport is a small central office located a few blocks from downtown Freeport that serves the town of Freeport in Westmoreland county as well as a small portion of Buffalo township in Butler county.
Originally a Step by Step office, it now houses a Nortel Remote Switching Center
This central office is the only one that does not have a EXchange name plaque on the side of the building.
Freeport was originally served by the Freeport Telephone Company. North Pittsburgh purchased the Freeport Telephone Company in 1954. It originally was housed in what is now an apartment complex and storefront in downtown Freeport. This picture shows a sign that is above the doorway for the old former phone company that was once housed there.
Here is closeup of the sign above the door.
Prefixes: (724) 294, 295
Old EXchange Name: CYpress-5
Gibsonia
Gibsonia was the headquarters for the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company (now Consolidated Communications). The Gibsonia central office serves all of Richland Township, western portions of West Deer Township, northern portions of Hampton Township, and eastern portions of Pine Township in Allegheny county, plus the southern portion of Middlesex Township in Butler county.
At one time this building housed a Step by Step switch and later an Automatic Electric #1EAX. It now houses at least one Nortel DMS-100/200 local end office & regional tandem switch. Consolidated also operates a second DMS-100 switch for CLEC functions.
The Gibsonia complex is quite large, holding several administrative buildings, maintenance garage and a cellular tower (Verizon Wireless & Nextel, and maybe others). The complex is located on PA Route 910 at the intersection of Ewalt Road in Richland Township.
Note the manhole cover – it clearly says “Bell System”. This manhole cover is located on Richland Road at its intersection of PA Route 910, just down the street to the right of the main building shown above. Obviously these are (or were at one time) the long distance trunks connecting North Pittsburgh to the rest of world.
Prefixes: (724) 443, 444, 449
Old EXchange Name: HIltop-3
Mars
No, this central office building is not on another planet, but is located in southern Butler county. Mars is a small central office located on the southern end of town that serves all of Mars borough as well as portions of Adams and Middlesex Townships and Valencia borough in Butler county, plus the northern part of Pine Township in Allegheny county. When this was first installed, this was the NAtional-7 exchange, later the NAtional-5 (625) exchange it is today.
Originally a Step by Step office, it now houses a Nortel Remote Switching Center
Prefixes: (724) 625
Old EXchange Name: NAtional-5
Saxonburg
Saxonburg is unique in the North Pittsburgh territory since it has two distinct central office buildings. The main building is a small central office located within Saxonburg borough on Main Street that serves Saxonburg along with portions of Penn, Jefferson and Winfield Townships.
The second building is an even smaller central office that serves Buffalo Township and is located on PA Route 228 just west of its intersection with PA Route 356. It is believed that there is no longer any switching equipment in this building anymore and all switching is done at the main building.
Originally a Step by Step office, at least the main building now houses a Nortel Remote Switching Center.
Prefixes: (724) 352, 353, 360
Old EXchange Names: FLanders-2 (left) and FLanders-3 (right)
Wexford
Wexford is a medium sized central office that serves the majority of Pine & Marshall Townships, Franklin Park Borough and Bradford Woods Borough in Allegheny county. The central office is located on PA Route 910 just west of its intersection with US Route 19.
The shrubs in front of the central office are recent additions as part of a recent beautification of the nearby intersection of PA Route 910 and Church Road as “Old Wexford”.
Originally a Step by Step, this office later housed an Automatic Electric #2EAX and now a Nortel DMS-100 host switch.
Prefixes: (724) 933, 934, 935, 940
Old EXchange Name: WEstmore-5
Other Pictures of Note
This picture of an underground outside plant pedestal box was taken in January 2006 near a new subdivision that was under construction off of Richland Road in Richland Township (Gibsonia). Note how North Pittsburgh is trying to promote themselves as a “broadband” company. Also, note the number for repair service. Someone should order some new stickers, as the area code for the region is now 724, not 412.
Prior to 1997, North Pittsburgh maintained a large number of Automatic Electric style pay phones throughout their territory. In 1997, North Pittsburgh sold all their pay phones to a COCOT (Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone) vendor in Richland Township. In 2004, this company either went out of business or decided to remove virtually all the pay phones, selling a few to another COCOT vendor.
What was left for a number of years were bunch of empty pay phone booths throughout the North Pittsburgh territory. Here is one example in North Park, located by the Boat House. Note the modern emergency call box next to the abandoned phone booth. (As of 2019 only the concrete pad is left.)
List of North Pittsburgh Telephone Company Unofficial History Pages
About the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company
Information about the former North Pittsburgh Telephone Company and its affiliated companies.
Personal Interest of North Pittsburgh Telephone Company Part 1
Background on the personal interest and recollection of the former North Pittsburgh Telephone Company from the Telephone World webmaster’s perspective.
Personal Interest of North Pittsburgh Telephone Company Part 2
More information on the personal interest and recollection of the former North Pittsburgh Telephone Company.
North Pittsburgh Telephone Technical History Timeline Part 1 (1906-1959)
A technical history of the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company from 1906 to 1959 from the prospective of the Telephone World webmaster.
North Pittsburgh Telephone Technical History Timeline Part 2 (1960-1980)
A technical history of the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company from 1960 to 1980 from the prospective of the Telephone World webmaster.
North Pittsburgh Telephone Technical History Timeline Part 3 (1980-2007)
A technical history of the North Pittsburgh Telephone Company from 1980 to 2007 from the prospective of the Telephone World webmaster.
Epilogue: Consolidated Communications of Pennsylvania (2008 to Present Day)
An epilogue of what happened post merger with Consolidated Communications.
North Pittsburgh Telephone Company Central Office Building & Miscellaneous Pictures
Pictures and information on the central office buildings and associated equipment for the former North Pittsburgh Telephone Company.