A look at the telegraph and telephone at the Depot

By OTTO DICK

We have at the Oregon Depot the original telegraph and telephone. The phone is attached to an extension device and the telegraph has a sending and receiving device. These are located on the station agent’s desk.

I enjoy showing our visitors how to send and receive messages on the telegraph. I learned to send and receive Morse code while stationed in the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

The following is a short history of the telegraph and telephone.

Telegraph: In 1837, Samuel Morse sent the first message over a wire from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. His first attempt was to lay the wire underground. This attempt was not successful, so he then strung the wire on poles. His first message from Washington to Baltimore was “What hath God wrought.” The first public telegraph office was located in Washington, D.C.

At the Oregon Depot, the railroad operator sent and received telegraph messages. Before this, the only way to communicate was by mail. So for the first 50 years of Oregon’s existence, they communicated by mail. Back in those days our early settlers used their writing skills to record the daily events and express their feelings. Thomas Ford, Illinois’ eighth governor, wrote a history of Illinois. They didn’t have radios, telephones, telegraphs and TVs, so they communicated by reading and writing.

Telephone: In the 1870s, Elisha

Gray and Alexander Graham Bell designed devices that could transmit speech electrically. This was two years before the C. and I. Railroad passed through Oregon. Bell shouted in the phone’s mouthpiece to his partner Watson the following sentence. “Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you.” Watson came and told Bell he had heard and understood what he said. The first telephone call had just been made.

Bell founded his Bell Telephone Company in 1877. After a series of mergers, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the forerunner of today’s AT&T, was incorporated in 1880. I didn’t realize that AT&T stood for American Telephone and Telegraph Co.

In 1886, the local newspaper reported phones at the Sinnissippi House, circuit clerk’s office, Jewett’s residence, Depot, Furniture Factory, George P. Jacobs, county clerk, Jewett’s store, sheriff, Mix Mill, Dr. Chappell, Dr. Mix and Oregon Manufacturing.

In 1889, the first pay phone was installed and used in the Hartford Bank. In the 1970s, the first cordless phones were introduced. Of course, later came cellphones.

At the Oregon Depot we have a history of telegraphs and telephones.

And Oregon residents used the pay phone located on the south wall of the depot.