St Paul Cooperative Telephone

HISTORY

The St Paul Mutual Telephone Association was established in October of 1909. At that time five magneto lines were built, one for the town and one for each of the routes outside the city limits. The magneto switchboard was operated and passed around to private homes. F Osborn elected John N Gooding as president, along with one secretary, one treasurer, and one councilman for each line. In 1942 a fifty-line dial system was installed, which required a Fulltime plant superintendent, the job was filled by Merril Forsthy. The company’s name was changed in 1947 to St Paul Cooperative Telephone Association, offices was President Charles Mullen, Directors Charles Kerr, John Mckillip, Peter Bernard and Pete Kirk.

 

John Drescher replaced Merril Forsthy in 1948 Hubert (Hub) Drescher replaced John Drescher in 1950. Hub, known as "Mr. Telephone" retired in 1985 and Nick Schneider took over and is the current Manager.

 

The fifty-line dial system was replaced with a XY switch and was in service until 1975 when a 700 line Stromberg-Carlson fully electronic ESC-3 switch was installed, this switch was in service until April 1993 when it was replaced with a 1080 line Siemens DCO digital switch. Then in 2006 we installed a Metaswitch 2500 that is currently in service at this time. St Paul Cooperative Telephone Association currently has 3 full time employees and serves approximately 550 lines.