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Autumn 2006, Vol. 10, No. 3 Jody Georgeson, EDITOR
Director’s Report
By Jody Georgeson
The big news is that we're
moving to the 930 15th St. building. We'll share a floor with the National
Pioneers organization, which we're very excited about. We've begun working with the Qwest move team
and plan to be in our new digs by the end of the October. It will be quite a job but well worth it, I
think. Fred Gurule,
our Qwest RE contact, assures me that there will be no more floods. We'll also have windows in our offices, which
will be a welcome change. And we'll be
right next door to the historic MST&T headquarters building, where we do so
many tours. We'll be sure to invite you
all down for a look-see as soon as we get settled.
Board Vice President and
faithful volunteer Mary Riffle invited us all to her beautiful North
Denver Home for what we hope is the first annual volunteer picnic. See Marty's article on page 7 for more about
that and for pictures.
Lest you think we're all play
and no work around here, I hasten to point out that we're still busy entering
data into databases, giving tours, fixing computers, fulfilling research
requests and doing all of the other things that go into operating this place.
Bob Haack has finished indexing the
NWB Magazines from 1921 through 1965.
This will allow researchers to find articles through a simple search of
the database. He's started on the NWB
News, which began being published in September, 1971. We're at a loss as to what the employee publication was between 1965 and 1971. If any of you know, please contact me. If you have any copies, please send them to
us!
Norman Birt is developing a retention
guide for our corporate records, something we sorely need. (I'm sure all of you one-time Bell and U S WEST people remember
the retention guide with fondness!)
We continue to add to the Virtual Museum. Our next project will add a virtual tour of
the Museum of Communications, so even those who can't
make it to Seattle will be able to view our wonderful exhibits
there.
Finally, you should all have
received your annual fundraising letter.
If you haven't paid your membership dues, please do so. We count on you, our members, for support of
our efforts to keep our telecommunications history alive and accessible.
A
Visit “Straight Over the Mountain”
Edited by Herb Hackenburg
It was my privilege to write Muttering
Machines to Laser Beams, the first history of Mountain Bell, published in 1986. The key word
here is “published.” Twenty years
before, another history of Mountain Bell was written by Bob Shelton, a talented
writer from the Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. Public Relations
Department. After fours years of work, Shelton’s book, Straight Over the Mountain, was ready to go to the
printer. For unknown reasons, top
management of MST&T decided not to publish it. Residing in THG’s collection of green
manuscript boxes is Shelton’s hand-edited 300-plus- page final
manuscript. I think THG members will
find segments of Bob’s book to be an educational, entertaining and unique
read. This is the first installment; the
brackets […] are my edits.
While Gallows
An old lineman who worked with both Western Union and the Colorado Telephone Company
started his job in the early ‘80s [1880s].
When interviewed around 1920 he said, “One day we was busy near the old
depot at Raton (New
Mexico)
when I looked down and seen this gambler dash out of a saloon door and make for
the depot. He was bein’
chased by a big bartender—apron, rolled-up sleeves an’ all—with a six-gun in
one hand. He overtook the gambler right
under the pole I was workin’ on and knocked him on
the head with the gun-butt. The gambler
keeled over, and in less than a minute a gang of hangers-on from the saloon
gathered ‘round him. Purty
soon, the gambler opened his eyes, an’ the bartender called up to me: ‘Hey,
you! Come down off that pole—we want to
use it for a few minutes.’
“I did what he said, right now. I didn’t want to be shook off that pole. When I got down they’d cut a bell cord from a
passenger train on the sidetrack and tied one end of it around the gambler’s
neck. “Now gimme
them hooks there, buddy,’ said one and I handed ‘em
over. He strapped ‘em
on and up the pole he went, with the loose end of the rope. He slipped it over the cross-arm and the gang
on the ground lifted the gambler clean up the pole while the bartender tied the
rope fast…
“I learned later that the gambler tried
three aces while the bartender was holdin’ two hisself. I had to
hold up my job ‘til someone cut the bird down….”
This adaptive but irregular use for
telephone poles is substantiated in the autobiography of a retired detective
who worked in Denver in the late ‘70s [1870s]. He wrote:
“The new telephone poles, which were put
on several of the downtown streets, attracted a lot of curiosity. As Denver was one of the first towns in the
frontier section to have such an innovation, the poles were pointed out to all
visitors who came here. About the first
thing the rough element thought of was the great desirability of the poles to
hold lynchings.
“Trees were so scarce in those days, we had difficulty sometimes in finding a suitable
place to lynch a horse thief or a crooked gambler….
“We believed that if the bad-man
insisted, a pole was the best place from which he could be hung. The phone company soon put through a city
ordinance, however, prohibiting the use of its poles as scaffolds for hanging
bees, and we had to hunt up a good bridge or a big tree for such festivities.
“We finally brought a tree from out near
Morrison and transplanted in the vicinity of the West Colfax Avenue bridge. We used that as a hanging tree and let the
phone company’s poles alone.”
Archives Month
Once again,
it's time for Archives Month, a national celebration of repositories that
maintain and preserve our nation's history.
This year, the theme in Colorado and Wyoming is Rocky
Mountain Memories.
Check your
local libraries, museums and other cultural institutions for activities.
Because of the
impending move, THG will be celebrating archives month in November with special
exhibits, an open house, and the second annual Hall of Fame ceremony.
We will also
have materials available that will help you preserve your personal documents
and photographs.
When: November 29 9 am-4 pm
Where: THG Archives 12th floor
930 15th St.
Denver
Scientist
Studies
Telephone
Telepathy
NORWICH (Sept. 5) - Many
people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from
someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof
of what he calls telephone telepathy .
Rupert Sheldrake, whose
research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had
conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone
calls and even e-mails.
Each person in the trials was
asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends.
These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to
identify the caller before answering the phone.
"The hit rate was 45
percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the
annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
"The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to
one."
He said he found the same
result with people being asked to name one of four people sending them an
e-mail before it had landed.
However, his sample was small
on both trials -- just 63 people for the controlled telephone experiment and 50
for the email -- and only four subjects were actually filmed in the phone study
and five in the email, prompting some skepticism.
Undeterred, Sheldrake -- who
believes in the interconnectedness of all minds within a social grouping --
said that he was extending his experiments to see if the phenomenon also worked
for mobile phone text messages.
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.
The Call Box Caper
Part Two
by Don Ostrand
When we last
saw our intrepid volunteers, they were on their way to Boeing Field to meet the
plane carrying their British Call Box.
We'll join them there as
the Call Box Arrives in Seattle.
We (Dick &
Bev,
Paul & Pearl, Lois, Ron,
Don Fagerholm and
myself) got off slightly late and with a small degree
of disappointment saw that the
Anatov was on the
ground when we arrived.
Checking in at
Flightcraft, we caught their van for the ride to the plane.
It had not been there for long as its jet engines were still running and
customs and agriculture folks were just starting their inspections. We're
talking big! That was the impression we all had of the four-engine
Anatov. (It was, reportedly, the 2nd largest aircraft in
existence. The largest was the six
engine Anatov. One report was that the C5A was longer but not as
wide and that the
Anatov carried a larger payload.)
We all accepted the fact that this plane was huge.
Soon the rear cargo door opened and we
were allowed to look in the cargo bay. A Rolls Royce engine bigger than one
could imagine was all that was visible. Within a very short time the Russian
crew had the engine hanging from the overhead hoist built
into the plane and were moving it out the cargo door. A Boeing lowboy
tractor/trailer promptly backed into place and the engine was loaded. (An interesting
sidelight was the comparison of the size of the tractor/trailer and the plane.
The rig looked like a 'Matchbox'® toy next to the plane.)
Next on the plane were some accessories
from Rolls Royce; they were unloaded next. Now the call box was in line to be
unloaded. Unfortunately, the Boeing truck that had been volunteered to haul it
to the museum had developed a fuel filter leak and could not be started. A
minor delay! The second RR engine was then hoisted and unloaded while the
Boeing truck mechanic fix the fuel leak problem. The
truck was finally backed into place. The overhead crane was attached to the
call box and the lift began. At last we could get a good view of it.
During the delay I had paged BRI's David Johnson and Noel Struthers to
update the status. Since they were only blocks away they decided to come to the
airfield in case their truck could be of use. Don West followed them
over as he also was waiting at the museum. Don West was the only one of us,
beside Paul, to go on the aircraft to take pictures. Soon the call box emerged
from the plane and was lowered onto the now fixed Boeing truck. Its driver, Bill
Murphy, chauffeured it to the Museum followed by BRI's
truck and soon after, the rest of us. The Flightcraft
van picked us up and returned us to the terminal.
Upon leaving, Dick noticed that the UK flag on the Boeing International
Airport's flagstaff was being flown upside down. He promptly returned to the
terminal to inform them of the error. They thanked him and asked, "How do
you tell?" They were educated on this point. And we moved on to the
museum.
With the boom truck in place and the sling
straps around the call box, the final 10 - 15 foot journey began. The call box
was lifted off the Boeing truck and was hanging loose. Bill Murphy and the
Boeing rig bid farewell. The second floor door was open and a smiling crew
eagerly awaited. Slow-ly the
call box was raised to the second floor equipment door and once at that level
was pulled partially into the floor. The sling strap at the inboard end came in
contact with the building above the door, preventing the call box from being
fully pulled into the building. The winch line was slowly slacked off -- looks
OK, slightly tipsy, but OK.
The plan was to slack off the winch line
to allow the inboard sling to be unhooked and to use the remaining sling to
hoist as the call box was pulled totally into the building. The slack was now
OK and the inboard sling was unhooked, when all of a sudden the wood pallet
started to crack and give way. That momentum was all it took and the call box
fell off the second floor into space. A dreadful picture was taking place right
before our eyes. After 8000 miles the call box was surely going to be
destroyed. As luck would have it, the second sling and the winch line were
still attached and lassoed the call box by the slight flair of the base. A
substantial glancing blow to the first floor door helped break the fall of the
call box. Has anyone ever seen a bungee jumping call box?
Well, the bungee prevented the call box
from striking the ground with any degree of force and no damage was sustained.
The winch line slowly lowered the load to the ground below and some
reengineering of the sling placements was made due to the now-missing pallet.
With a deep breath and a few minor
personal adjustments among the group, the lift was on. This time the call box
was pulled further into the building and all was well. If one took notice of
the article in the Seattle Times, Dicken-sheets was
the overseer of the hoisting caper. Thanks Bob!
The call box was loaded onto a four-wheel
cart and a pallet jack and rolled uneventfully into its new home. All entered
into a discussion of great length on how to hoist the call box from its
horizontal position to a vertical one. The outcome was to delay the hoist until
Friday at 7:30
am and to employ
additional tools that Don Fagerholm would bring. So
far the entire day's events have been captured on film, maybe a plus, maybe
not! I'm sure that someday we may laugh, but for now we all are thankful no one
was hurt and the call box was safely inside the museum.
Don Fagerholm
and I arrived Just after 7:00, fol-lowed
shortly thereafter by Lois and Ron. The hoisting crew was on the job. Using a 4
by 6 inch beam across the superstructure overhead, the Dons rigged a chain fall
"come along" supported by the 4x6. A chain was attached to the call
box. Next--using my floor jack--we raised the call box enough to remove the
pallet jack and four-wheel cart and also placed a 12 by 6 inch timber under its
midpoint to allow the call box to pivot as we started the lift. Soon the weight
became greater than we anticipated and we paused to survey our plight. The
result of our survey was to use the floor jack to assist in lifting the weight,
so we moved the jack in place and continued our lift. The jack required
readjusting several times but in the end this effort raised the call box to a
point not quite on the balance.
Fortunately Don Fagerholm
had a second "come along" and plenty chain. The second set of
hoisting gear was set up between an adjacent pillar and the call box. As Ron
worked the second "come along" and it started to pick up the load we
were soon at a balance point and now Don F. had to start backing off the other
"come along" so as to slowly and carefully lower the call box to the
vertical position on the floor. All the hoisting gear was unhooked and packed
away.
At last the call box is within inches of
where we intend to have it. "Well let's just turn it 1/4 turn and slide it
about 6 inches closer to the pillar". Yeah, sure! With all four of us
pushing the call box stood its ground. Again Don F. came to the rescue. He had
brought his 6-foot steel pry bar and some short sections of pipe with him. So
as Don lifted the call box with the pry bar, Lois slipped the pipe sections
under each side and we rolled the call box home. After we gathered up all of
Don's tools, we all stood back to admire the beautiful addition and exchanged
our thoughts of the dream come true.
The
call box was installed at 11:30 and the Museum held a
reception in its honor that same day at 4 pm
As a final touch, Bev
Bendicksen provided a British Flag that was a gift to
her sometime back, which now flies over the Call Box. The origin of Bev's flag was from the Queen's
yacht, Britannia and was obtained by a
friend when the Britannia visited Seattle.
All in all, this story
could have been make-believe; a visit to
the museum will be proof that it is
very true. Thanks to all!
Volunteer Picnic
By
Marty Donovan
THG held its first annual volunteer
picnic August 16. We met at Mary Riffle’s house
for a barbecue cookout. Her place is
perfect for a picnic. The house was
renovated from an old bakery shop. It
sits away from the street, providing a lot of privacy. She has a large front yard with a covered
gazebo and plenty of room for a
picnic table.
Our hostess……
Mary served barbecued hamburgers, hotdogs
and an assortment of other goodies. We
had quite a turnout, Bruce Amsbury, Herb Hackenburg, Dale Norblom,
Ken Pratt, Milo Masura, Merlin Crespin,
Betty Vigil, George Howard, Jody Georgeson, and Marty Donovan.
Some of the volunteers played basketball
in her driveway while others visited in the gazebo. Milo
told several stories of his adventures in Montana.
Betty and Marty talked about their vacations overseas.
Good food…
…….fun and games………
…………………………and
fellowship.
More photos are available on the Volunteers page.
To
all of our members, have a wonderful autumn season. Enjoy the sunshine and colorful leaves, and
don’t forget to give thanks for family and friends. We at THG are very thankful for all of you!
© 2006 The Telecommunications History Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
