TELEPHONE COMPANY

  Minden, Louisiana

George Adcock

Submitted by Dottie Day Adcock

The telephone company was called Cumberland Telephone  when it began in 1899. It became Southern Bell on July 1, 1926. Originally it was located upstairs in the Webb Hardware building.

In 1938 it moved to Cedar Street where it remained until its relocation to Monroe Street in February 1957. Direct dialing was added in September 1961.

In 1968 the name was changed to South Central Bell . On April 30, 1969, the 10,000th telephone was installed, and "Information" was phased out.

John's father, George Alman Adcock retired as a test deskman about that time after at least 40 years with the Bell System. He was a member of the "Telephone Pioneers."

"Mr. George" was born in Bernice, Louisiana on March 26, 1905. He died on December 17, 1977, and is buried in the Old Minden Cemetery.

 
 Dottie Day Adcock

 

 Compliments of Vera Wood Weaver

Milly Aarons in the very back, ______? In front of Milly Aarons is _____Caskey  and Vera Wood on the right. In the front is JoAnn White. Can someone help us identify the person in front of Vera?

The lady in the truck cab was Grace Rogers, chief operator of Southern Bell Tel. Co. (Identified by Milly Aarons McMichael)

Compliments of Vera Wood Weaver

These ladies were graduates of 1956. The Telephone company had this float in the Minden Fair Parade.

The Phone Company Speaks For Itself

Compliments of Vera Woods Weaver

Five lovely ladies...Milly Aarons, JoAnn White, ______,_____, & Vera Wood. We need you to help us identify two of them. Send us a message if you know their names. Many thanks to Vera for her contributions to Minden Memories.

                                                                  MindenMemories@AOL.COM

Aren't they lovely in their beautiful evening gowns riding in the fair parade? Can you help identify the pretty lady in the cab and the driver of that classic truck with the telephone dial on the side of the cab?  Was the name of the telephone company Southwestern Bell back then? I had not realized dial phones had come to Minden by 1956. When I graduated in 1955 my phone number was 303-W. We shared a party line with the Gay family.

For a while I worked for the telephone company in Shreveport. If we wanted to stand up we had to ask permission. If we sat back down, we had to ask the service assistant. One day a customer called in. He must have thought the operator was a madam since the operators response to his question was a shocked scream. He hung up and she received a demerit.

                                                                  Sherry Gresham Gritzbaugh

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 Was the name of the company Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph co. better known as Southern Bell Tel.& Tel. or was it South Central Bell Tel. & Tel. They have changed names so many times,  I don't know the name of the truck driver, but the lady was a Mrs Rogers ---she was in Management  -If I remember correctly---she was over all of the telephone operators at the Minden Office. The Minden office went dial in 1957. We of little seniority had to transfer or quit. I transferred to the Shreveport office in the spring of l957. The telephone office in Minden was like our Minden High school. So much fun--everybody knew everybody , everybody did their job but had fun doing it. Transferred to the Shreveport office--I thought I had died and gone to Hell. You were so right Sherry, you had to ask permission to go to bathroom , to stand from your stool, or to sit back down. The stools were so high from the floor, if we had slipped and fell with those head sets on, I guess we could have broken our necks.  But, Oh, moving to Shreveport was an eye awakening experience for me. I guess then I really had to grow up, Tom and I were alone for the first time since we had been married. I  missed our cute little apartment in Minden, I missed going to see my folks, I missed dropping in on Tom's folks, and his brothers and their wives. We moved to an alien country where we knew no-one and this part of the world didn't appear real friendly.  Hallulah--we survived---and Shreveport wasn't all that bad, I just had a lot of small townitis to over come.   Didn't we all, Sherry.? 

                                                                                      Vera Wood Weaver

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                                                                    THE CLEANING LADY

The cleaning lady at the phone company transferred from the North as a Supervisor. When she moved to Shreveport they would not even let her work as a telephone operator.  They gave her a job cleaning the bathrooms. This was around 1958.                                            

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