May 12, 2025 - The call was to ring out the old and bring in the new in San Augustine the night of March 18, 1950. That was the night that the last call was made on the old telephone switchboard at 11:42pm by Mayor Guy Z. Moore. After the proper switches were made by telephone technicians, Mayor Moore made the very first dialed call on the new telephone system.
I still remember our old telephone number, 930F2, which was our number for a long time. The phone was a crank type which summoned a telephone operator who would ask “number, please” and plug you into the proper circuit. This system required a large number of employees in order to keep service 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Mrs. Ralph Morgan, nee Miss Myrtle McEachern, was the operator who plugged in Mayor Moore’s last telephone call that eventful night. She had been an operator for over twenty-four years at the time.
As a result of the change all of San Augustine’s 700 telephone customers were switched. The Southwestern Bell Telephone’s representative, Mr. Grant, requested that customers destroy the old directories and use the new gray book which for the first time incorporated a yellow page section.
Although the change from manual to dial operation required but a few seconds, it marked the culmination of many months of work. “Next,” Grant said, “our installers will be taking out the crank type phones as they are no longer of any use.” Mr. Grant continued, “We are glad to provide San Augustine with the most modern type of telephone system. It incorporates the latest scientific developments in this type of communication. The best in telephone service is needed here in a small city that has grown from 288 to 700 telephones in ten years and rendered the old type system obsolete.”
Unfortunately the change to dial made necessary the shifting of several of the switchboard personnel. Mrs. Florence Mitchell and Mrs. Mabel Stewart continued to serve as operators at the new system while others were transferred. Mrs. Ola Halbert, Nelda Faye Hinton, Fay Dell Baldree, Marie Clark, and Era Bennefield were all transferred to Nacogdoches, while Myrtie Morgan was sent to Lufkin. Six other employees were terminated.
This ended an era of telephone service with a ‘live’ operator at the other end of the line. I found the operators to be quite informative – they could tell you where the fire was, and where the ambulance was going. An experienced operator would pretty well know everyone’s telephone number from memory. These days, operators, who are seldom needed, are located in some far-off city and don’t know what is on fire or where the ambulance went. I suppose that is progress.
