Geek Heaven: A Visit To The Ellsworth Telephone
Museum
by Lee H. Goldberg
While she's much more at home at quilt shows and botanical gardens, my
wife Catherine has learned to enjoy (at least in small doses) the air shows,
farm equipment rallies, ham fests, and other geekish attractions that I'm
drawn to. And, after 11 years of marriage, I realized that she must really
love me when she willingly volunteered to leave the quiet cabin on the lake
where we were vacationing to accompany me to the Ellsworth Telephone Museum in Ellsworth, Maine. Located
down a country road a couple of miles off of Route 1A, the Telephone Museum
combines two of my favorite things -- obscure technology and eccentric hobbies.
The museum and the folks who run it are a fine example of why I have a deep affection for people engaged in the passionate pursuit of the obscure. The staff is unfailingly warm and welcoming, and treats you like a long-lost friend the moment you crunch up the winding gravel driveway. I guess they figure that if you spotted their single tiny sign and bothered to venture off the highway to their little haven, you're probably part of their tight-knit fraternity of hard-core telephone nuts. And if you weren't a phone fanatic when you arrived, their enthusiasm is so infectious that before long you might find yourself debating the relative merits of turn-of -the century (20th) vintage magneto-powered systems versus the more "modern" battery-powered equipment.
Displaying the same reverence for ancient technologies
and obsession with the arcane technical minutiae that one usually associates
with steam train enthusiasts or antique tractor aficionados, this band of irregulars
has rescued many important examples of the equipment which formed the backbone
of our communications infrastructure before transistors and ICs replaced
relays and switches.
The museum's small, well-kept complex of barns, sheds and outbuildings
house a collection of equipment that spans a century of the phone system's
history -- much of which has been coaxed back to life by the staff and volunteers.
The main display area includes a cozy jumble of handsets from the 1890s
onward which can be connected and rung up by either by a 1930s vintage design
Northern Electric magneto-driven switchboard or a classic 1950s-era Western
Electric model 555 battery PBX board which was the equipment of choice for
small and medium-sized businesses into the late 1960s. 
Since
most of this gear was designed to serve under near-military conditions and
is pretty much indestructible, the staff is more than happy to let kids
(of an age) sit at the operator's console, patch together a circuit, and
ring up a friend at nearly any of the dozens of phones that line the room's
walls.
In addition, they have managed to assemble a nice representative collection
of heavy iron, the exchange switches used by phone companies to connect
hundreds, and even thousands, of phone lines. 
Thanks
to the volunteer efforts, one can still hear the clatter of electro-mechanical
relays setting up circuits and even see some of the last running examples
of equipment using the famous Strowger step-by-step rotary/vertical switches that
powered most of the phone system innards for three generations.
Among other rarities, the museum has managed to resurrect a major slice of a huge 1963 vintage Western Electric #5 crossbar from Belfast ME that served the city until 1990, and a complete 1970s-era #3 electromechanical (one of the last) crossbar system. One of the last electromechanical systems, produced just before electronic switches conquered the market completely, the #3 switch was compact 800-line turnkey exchange built into a container that allowed it to be trucked in and put into operation within a few days.
One of the other rarities on display is the Frenchboro Exchange a 1930s vintage North Electric all-relay exchange that has served three lives. Retired once from commercial service in the early 1980s, it was bought by Jeff Webber, a history teacher from Bangor who used it to bring 60-odd lines of service to Frenchboro, a village on an island off the Maine coast where he had a vacation home. As his hobby expanded, he also installed similar rigs served on Swan's Island, and Isle au Haut to construct what he called "the nation's smallest phone company." The exchange was finally taken out of commission and brought to the museum in the mid-1990s where it became the first operational switch on the property, and still serves as the facility's main gateway to the commercial phone network.
After two hours we had only scratched the surface of the collection, and I could have stayed and jawboned with the folks at the museum until closing time...but Catherine's glazed expression told me that it was time to go. I guess I owe her a nice long trip to the quilt store some time in the near future. But once the score is settled, I've discovered some really cool geek havens pretty close to home that I'll try to catch over the next year.
Among other excursions I have planned are the Franklin Mineral Museum in Sterling, New Jersey, which is built on the site of a defunct mining operation and houses one of the world's largest collection of fluorescent minerals. I also hope to make my second pilgrimage to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, a living aviation museum which has an extensive collection of aircraft (dating back as early as 1909), cars, and other turn-of-the-century equipment -- much of which is run and used on a regular basis. In fact, the Aerodrome is probably the only place on the planet that regularly flies WW-I-era planes.
When the winter snows fly, we'll venture over to Flemington, New Jersey to visit Northlandz, one of the world's largest (and most obscure) model railway displays. And when warm weather rolls around again, I'll head up to the Delaware Water Gap next to visit the Shohola Museum of Communications and Technology, a delightful-looking museum run by the kids at Camp Shohola as part of their "com-tech" educational program.
I've also got some more ambitious plans to catch up with some of the more distant havens for eccentrics that dot the American landscape. When I'm out in Silicon Valley for the Embedded Systems Conference next spring, I'll be sure to hop over to Oakland and catch a ride on the large-scale model live steam trains run by dedicated hobbyists on a huge layout they've built in beautiful Tilden Park. And if I can get the timing right on a Texas business trip next spring, I'll head to Houston to catch their fabulous Art Car Parade. Of course, while I'm there, I'll also be sure to re-visit some of my other favorite offbeat Houston attractions like the Orange Show and the Beer Can House.
Comments? Questions? Other offbeat geek-havens and wingnut-reserves you'd like to share with me or your fellow analogZONE readers? Write me at: lgoldberg@green-electronics.com
|