Like community newspapers, our phones connect us with one another.
So do our stories. As we have been developing the June 15 Blocks and Blooms tour, we have been enjoying some stories, making some surprising connections, all about phones.
One of the stops on our self-guided tour we’re planning is Dr. Turner’s house on King Street West. The home’s current owners have generously offered to open their doors to give ticket holders a chance to discover more about this extraordinary village doctor with the entrepreneurial streak. Opening his medical practice here in 1890, Dr. Turner recognized more than the local need for medical services. Sure, he ran a drug store and opened a small hospital downtown in addition to looking after his roster of patients. But, he also noted the advantages of having electric lights so built a plant to manufacture electricity by steam until the village was connected to the hydroelectric grid. He saw that his patients needed to get in touch with him when they needed him, so he established the Turner Telephone Company. This wasn’t surprising as in many communities it was the local doctors who set up the first telephone systems, and Dr. Turner was fascinated by gadgets.
What is surprising is that the Turner Telephone Company, for a time operating out of Dr. Turner’s drug store, is described in Nexicom’s 2009 History publication as “the taproot” for our own independent communications company. Through a complicated series of mergers and deals, the Turner Telephone Company became part of the Millbrook Rural Telephone Company which in 1941 was bought by Ed Downs and Henry “Gus” Coon. They renamed the company Docon Telephones (a combination of the two men’s names) and set up the single switchboard in the old Victoria Hotel in downtown Millbrook.
In 1957, the name Durham Telephones was adopted. After Ed Downs died in 1978, his sons John and Paul took over the running of the business. They invested in other local independent telephone companies, successfully negotiated with Bell to keep local rates affordable, and then took the company into the digital age. By 1998, the hugely expanded company from Millbrook offered local telephone service, cell service, internet and cable, and also had a thriving equipment supply arm. It was time for a new name. Nexicom came into being.
Nexicom has stayed home: Millbrook is still home base. The company is proud of its roots and has enthusiastically joined the Blocks and Blooms tour both as the sponsor for the day’s horse-drawn wagon tours and as another of our open houses. Ticket holders will have the opportunity to tour an exhibit of equipment and memorabilia in the foyer and former Council Chambers at what was the Town Hall, now Nexicom’s headquarters.
One more telephone story has woven its way into the fabric of our Blocks and Blooms tour. Featured that day as one of the heritage homes and gardens to visit is the former home of Anna Fair. Anna was one of the early switchboard operators, beginning her career in the mid 1930s with the Millbrook Rural Telephone Company. In 1942, she moved over to the Turner Supply Company (later Docon), a telephone equipment offshoot that had grown out of Turner’s original telephone service. She repaired and rebuilt telephones and switchboards, and stayed with the company until her retirement in 1982.
Now and then, we are lucky enough to connect stories together to get the big picture. Stay tuned for more!
Now and Then by Celia Hunter
