Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1897 — A Country Telephone Exchange. [ARTICLE]

A Country Telephone Exchange.

Which will be the first country neighborhood to put in a telephone exchange ? It would cost but little and once built the expense thereafter would be nominal. Two dollars a mile would pay for the wire; the farmers could furnish the poles and set them; the instruments cost about ten dollars apiece. A score of farmers in any township in the county could build and own a line reaching as far as four miles from an agreed center for four hundred dollars cash outlay. The city companies would give them special into the city. The fact that the city subscribers would be in constant communication with an entire township would be a big point in its favor and enlarge its patronage.—Marion Chronicle.