Keeping people connected since 1898
A
fter getting electricity in the mid-1800s, Mankato got phone service in 1898 when a group of businessmen formed Mankato Citizens Telephone Company. Founders were Lorin Cray, Henry E. Hance, William A. Funk, J.H. Jones, Ed Staede, F. Kron, W.N. Plymat, H.A. Patterson, John C. Wise Jr., A.G. Bierbauer, Nic. Peterson, John Klein, John B. Meagher, and O.W. Schmidt. According to the book “Our Family Album, A Company History From 1898,” the phone company, in 1921, became the third business in Minnesota to provide group life insurance to all employees. In 1969 the company formed Mid-Communications Inc. and bought the small telephone exchanges for Blue Earth County, giving private-line dial service to more than 7,700 subscribers on farms and area towns. In 1972 the phone company laid a fiber optic cable from MCTC offices to Minnesota State University, allowing for 672 conversations to take place on one fiber pair. In the late 1980s there were more than 25,000 subscribers in the Mankato-North Mankato area and Mid Communications was one of the few independent telephone companies left in Minnesota. For the first 100 years of operation, the company’s operators gave the time of day, forwarded emergency messages and provide other assistance to callers. The last operators worked until 1998. In the mid ’90s the company, now called HickoryTech, was listed on the stock exchange and they began buying other telephone exchanges, introduced Internet access and moved into providing cable TV services. In recent years the company rapidly expanded fiber networks around Minnesota and in neighboring states and focused more on providing services to businesses. In 2013 the company aligned all of its products and services under one name - Enventis.
A Mankato Citizens Telephone Company switchboard, around 1900. | Blue Earth County Historical Society
Workers install lines to recently erected telephone poles in Mankato in 1898. | Blue Earth County Historical Society
Enventis 1898 to 2014
Mankato Citizen’s Telephone Company founded in Mankato. Investors purchased shares at $25. Eagle Lake, Minn. exchange forms. Federal government seizes control of large telephone companies and divides Minnesota: Northwestern Bell and Tri-State. MCTC is the largest of 1,719 independent telephone companies in Minnesota, outside of the Twin Goliaths. First telephone call ever from England to Mankato, Minn. Mankato exchange converts to 7-digit dialing, allowing U.S. callers with Direct Distance Dialing to dial without assistance; DDD expanded to 19 communities in 1965; Company Foundation established.
Four-for-one stock split. Two-for-one stock split. Hickory Tech Corporation launches as a holding company, parent to five subsidiaries: MCTC, Mid-Comm, Computoservice Inc., Information and Communication Service Inc., and Mid-Communications Cablevision Inc. Two-for-one stock split ICIS is dissolved and merged into MCTC. HTCO is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Three-for-one stock split; Crystal Communications becomes Minnesota first facilities-based CLEC, competing in Nicollet, Minn; Enventis celebrates 100 years of business. HickoryTech becomes the new name for MCTC, Mid-Com, Crystal Communications and Heartland Telecommunications. Company purchases Internet Connections, adding nearly 5,000 additional Internet customers.
Wireless business sold to Western Wireless. Company acquires Enventis Telecom, a transport and enterprise Internet Protocol Telephony sales business with 75 employees and offices in Plymouth, Duluth and Rochester, Minn.
1898 1901 1905 1907 1918
1927 1945 1949
1963
1964 1966 1971 1972 1984 1985
1987 1988 1990
1993 1995 1997
1998 1999 2000
2001 2002
2003 2005
2008 2009
Company completes fiber network expansion to the Dakotas and constructs a fiber network in Des Moines, Iowa.
2010
Fargo, No. Dakota, a fiber and data service provider in the greater Fargo area.
2012
All services and products are aligned under one brand - Enventis.
2011
2013
Mapleton and Garden City, Minn. franchises acquired. Saulpaugh Hotel in Mankato buys first private branch exchange.
Operators no longer needed for local calls; Trans-Atlantic telephone service now available. The Company is Minnesota’s largest independent telephone company, with exchanges in Mankato/North Mankato, Mapleton, Good Thunder, Madison Lake, Eagle Lake, St. Clair and Garden City. National Independent Billing Inc. was founded as a mainframe-based billing service for independent telephone companies. Company’s first-ever television ads air. Fiber optic cable between MCTC and Minnesota State University Mankato can carry 672 conversations on one fiber pair. Two-for-one stock split Three-for-one stock split; ICSI acquires Digital Techniques Inc. in Texas and Collins Communications Systems Co. in Minnesota. Computoservice begins National Independent Billing. Enventis is the nation’s 30th largest telephone company after $35.2 million acquisition of 11 Iowa exchanges; Heartland Telecommunications. Internet Services and 56K Internet access introduced. Company launches DSL high-speed Internet services in Mankato, Minn. The Company overbuilds four CLEC communities: St. Peter, Waseca and Faribault, Minn. and Waukee, Iowa. Information Solutions Division offers SuiteSolution, a billing and customer management system; Company receives a four-year contract to provide regional highspeed wide area network to 73 schools and libraries in Minnesota served by Project SOCRATES. Data center and colocation facility opens in Mankato, Minn. Company acquires CP Telecom, a telecom provider serving Minneapolis, St. Paul and northern Minnesota with voice, data and Internet services. Enventis breaks ground on the Greater Minnesota Broadband Collaborative Project with the construction of a fiber route from Duluth, Minn. to the Twin Cities.
MN Valley Business • January 2014 • 15