NOT The Loneliest Phone Booth

Written by Trina Machacek

Since the Life Magazine article came out in July 1986, deeming US Highway 50 between Fallon, Nevada and Baker, Nevada as the loneliest highway in America, there have been those who have climbed on that bandwagon touting of the loneliest town, hamburger, airport, even the loneliest outhouse. But! Yes, a loneliest “but.” In Diamond Valley, Eureka County there was a phone booth on the corner of 7th Street and Highway 101, AKA the valley road that was never lonely. Not by a long shot. Oh and there were several long shots taken from that phone booth at rabbits and squirrels over the years of its life.

In the late 1960’s when Diamond Valley was coming of age and the residents were still miles apart and money was still being scraped together to plant and harvest a crop the need of better communications was becoming a must. Many of the farms had their own CB (Citizen Band) radio towers with units in houses, trucks and equipment. e valley residents communicated with each other that way for years. Most of the valley residents were still driving into town on deeply rutted dirt roads. e roads were so dusty that windshield wipers were oen needed when driving into Eureka in the summer months to use the phones available in town. Eureka was some 10 to 17 or more miles away depending on where your farm was. When Diamond Valley started to grow and more people erected small houses or brought in little trailers to live on their farms, they were still all those miles away from the nearest telephone to get news, call families and bankers. Some residents were lucky to have made friends in town who would take messages on their phones and drive out to the valley to deliver those messages. It was always exciting to see dust coming from town because that meant company and news was coming.

AT&T was still a company and an offshoot of AT&T was Nevada Bell. Nevada Bell was centrally located in Reno, Nevada with satellite offices throughout Nevada. With meetings between new farmers and Nevada Bell employees out of Ely a plan was devised to offer phone service to Diamond Valley. It didn’t happen overnight. It took a few years of planning, mapping out a route from the central office in Eureka to where the first phone would be installed. It was settled near the end of the 1960’s to bring the line out to 7th Street, some 10 miles. e ground was so hard that two small CAT tractors and one IH farm tractor was needed to have enough horsepower to pull the ripper through the ground deep enough to bury the line five feet down. But with hard work and cooperation between a few farmers and Nevada Bell the first phone was set in Diamond Valley and that phone was a pay phone!

Over the next years farmers began to sign up for phone service to their farms. It was expensive as they had to pay so much a mile to get service and then the monthly bill from then on included a per mile service fee. e mileage was set from the central office on Main Street in Eureka to where ever the service was provided. In the early years of phone service there were no dial phones. All calls were picked up and placed by telephone operators located in Ely, Nevada some 80 miles to the East. All the lines in the valley at first were party lines and the stories of party line phone service—Well that’s another story for sure.

Today all that is le on the corner of 7th Street and the valley road, Highway 101, are memories, a tired and dilapidated wooden post.

e Diamond Valley phone booth was such that it got a lot of use over the years. Not just farmers conducting business and keeping in touch with families and ordering parts. It was a lifeline for many hired men who found themselves out in the middle of nowhere. It became a sort of gathering place. Especially on paydays when hired farm and ranch hands would call “home” putting in nickels, dimes and quarters to hear things of home and talk to loved ones. A lot of beer was consumed at the tiny phone booth that would shine like a star at night when the door was closed. You see there was a light in the top of the phone booth that came on when the door was shut. You know the glass of that booth was never shot out and the phone was never vandalized. It was that important to the residents of Diamond Valley.

e phone booth over time would be a gathering place to discuss life with other farmers and ranchers of the valley while waiting turns at the phone. As time does though, the phone booth was used less and less. e coin collector from the phone company came fewer and fewer times. e valley grew and soon in the early 1970’s dial phones were installed and the original payphone was replaced by a dial payphone.

In 1975 Nevada Bell went to push button phones in most of its area. But the phones and the phone booth in Diamond Valley remained dial phones. Equipment was upgraded slowly in Eureka and as with all things, when cell phones started to come on line things changed again. Push button phones came to Eureka and with that in the late 70’s our phone booth had outlived its life and was taken out.

Today all that is le on the corner of 7th Street and the valley road, Highway 101, are memories, a tired and dilapidated wooden post that many leaned on over the years, a green phone connection box and a few exposed old wires. It’s quiet on that spot today. But if you stand there long enough you may just hear the ding of dimes being put in the coin slot to make calls. A dime might still be found with a metal detector. You might also hear the laughter of so many who made much needed connections with loved ones from Diamond Valley to places and people far and wide.

My family was part of Nevada Bell. I was a phone operator in Ely before I was married and moved to Eureka. My brother and father worked for the phone company for over 35 years each. So right time right place put me in the position to obtain the last Diamond Valley phone pictured in this article. e phone booth was at the road that went into our farm on 7th Street. Diamond Valley is full of wonderful history and great people who made it what it is today.

DISCOVER WHAT’S GOING ON IN EUREKA COUNTY

For a full list of events, dates and times be sure to visit www.visiteurekanevada.net

June

Legends of the West Bike and Car Fest

Perdiz - FFA Spring Shoot

Perdiz - Fathers Day Shoot

Eureka Opera House Event

July

EVFD - 4th of July Celebration

Perdiz Fun Shoot

VFW Annual Softball Tournament

Juvenile Probation Volleyball Tournament

August

Perdiz - Walkabout

Eureka County Fair and Rodeo

Perdiz - Dove Hunters Warm Up

National Night Out