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January 25, 1915…The First Transcontinental Phone Call Made
100 years ago today, Alexander Graham Bell (shown below) in New York placed a call to his long time assistant, Thomas Watson in San Francisco at 4 PM Eastern time. The second transcontinental call to San Francisco was made at 4:30 over an even greater distance from Jekyll Island, Georgia, which had to be routed through Boston.
“You’ll never know just how much I love you”
He’s speaking with a technical support rep in New Delhi.
Until the introduction of the vacuum tube, a call from New York could only go as far as Denver if you were lucky, and you had to shout to be heard.
“For English, press one; for Chinese, press two…”
This is an incredible piece of history. Reading the NY Times story, the cost for a call was very expensive: “New York and San Francisco would be $20.70 for the first three minutes, and $6.75 for each minute thereafter” That was huge cash back then.
You had to have either a beard or mustache to get in . . . 😉
When asked to describe the call, replied: “You see, wire telephone is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in San Francisco! 😉
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