100 Years Ago
Mayor A. E. Jones wrote a weekly column in the Transcript for many years, appropriately called "The Mayor's Own Column." In it, he gave us a sort of stream-of-consciousness report of the things occupying his mind: how to get rid of weeds when the City was out of budget; how to thaw the frozen water pipes that were threatening the City's water supply; how to discourage kids from tipping over outhouses at Halloween.
The September 24, 1925 column expressed his pleasure that the phone company planned to build a new office and upgrade their equipment so that Golden people no longer needed to crank their phones to reach the operator.
I am...pleased to learn that the company will change over from the old style ringing system to the modern common battery system, which will eliminate the old hand ringing phones.
I've seen people crank their phones in old movies, but had never considered why they were doing that. They were creating an electrical charge to signal the operator that they needed attention. The next generation of telephones & switches had batteries, so the line was charged all the time. As soon as the caller picked up the phone, the operator would respond.
This may seem like a small change, but it was yet another point of civic pride for Golden's mayor. He imagined how embarrassing it would be to have a visitor from Denver trying to use one of our phones and not realizing that Golden's phones still required cranking!
The mayor had an active imagination and could think up all sorts of scenarios.
How many times have you rushed to the phone in the dark, turned the crank and in so doing dropped the receiver; and by the time you got a grip on the receiver and placed it to your ear perhaps Central had answered in the meantime, and, hearing your line of cuss words as a penalty took her time in giving you service?
A Year Later
Mayor Jones was having a few second thoughts the following July, after the new phones had been installed.
Oh well yes, I do like the new phone system. Sure, it's an improvement over the old. But at the same time I miss the old calling crank. It was handy when I wished to give vent to my temper. Now the telephone ways are working so smoothly I guess I will have to take out my spite on the Ford starter crank. By the way, you who said you didn't much care for the appearance of the new phone building will soon have to do extra grazing to locate it, due to the crop of the neighbors' weeds.
Colorado Transcript - July 8, 1926
