San Francisco Division. The Toll Chief Operator, her Assistant and her Supervisors, deeply regret the departure of the Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley lines, whose past relationship will always be one of "pleasant recollection." However, on the other hand, all are delighted at the progress and enthusiasm displayed by the local operators in handling the Oakland work so proficiently, and in such a business-like manner. The City Chief Operator, Mr. M. D. Sedam, addressed an enthusiastic audience of employées at Franklin Office on Tuesday evening, January 21. The two-number method was so thoroughly demonstrated that not one employée was left in doubt of any point and every one left greatly enlightened in all branches pertaining to this new system of trans-bay operating. A second complete unit of switchboard has just been completed at Market Office, San Francisco, and increases the capacity of that exchange 6000 stations. The Douglas unit of switchboard at Main Office, San Francisco, is also nearing completion and will provide equipment for 7200 additional stations and will relieve the present congestion in the down-town district. Chinatown said "Holemah" over the telephone during the Chinese New Year season for the first time since the Chinese Exchange of The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company was destroyed by fire twenty-two months ago. The old exchange contained equipment for 1000 telephones and was one of the sights of the old Chinatown. A temporary equipment has been fitted up for the Chinese subscribers in the first floor of the Kearny-Street building, and Yick Chinn, a Chinese boy who talks Fillmore-Street English, is in charge. Coast Division. On February 12 the Inland Empire Excursion train arrived at San Jose. The train was composed of the finest vestibule coaches at the command of the railroad company. The coaches were equipped with telephone service, and while the train remained at San Jose it was connected with the San Jose Exchange, which afforded telephone connection from the train to the outside world. It was a novel feature and attracted considerable attention. Mr. Reynolds, Spokane Wire Chief, who was in charge of the apparatus on the train, called at the Division Office, San Jose, during his stay here. Mr. O'Connell of the Traffic Department and Mr. Miller of the Engineering Department paid an official visit to our Palo Alto office recently to investigate the needs of Palo Alto, so that the new equipment soon to be installed may afford ample facilities. The work of installing a new No. 8 switchboard at San Mateo is nearly completed, and as soon as the underground is finished all will be ready to cut over San Mateo to the new equipment. The modern plant, together with the several private branch exchanges which are being installed in residences in San Mateo and Burlingame, will provide the company with an Al exchange in every respect. The installing of additional A and B. boards at San Jose has been completed and the additional capacity provided is rapidly being occupied. At Santa Cruz the growth in business has made it necessary to rent the store adjoining the present quarters to provide extra room. Farmer line development in the Coast Division has been given much attention by the Contract Department during the past month, and they have succeeded in signing up farmers in the vicinity of Soledad, San Lucas, Hollister, Cambria, and Campbell. The agents have been going among them and have succeeded in awakening the farmers in many territories to the advantages to be derived from telephone connection, and it is expected that within the next sixty days the Coast Division will be able to show a marked increase in this class of business. The Forest Service, through its Forest Supervisor, T. Tortensen, has just completed a line connecting with The Pacific Puget Sound Division. The Seattle Exchange Operating School suffered a decided loss when Miss Belford, School Director, resigned recently to take up a two years' course of study in the Annie Wright Seminary at Tacoma. Miss Belford was in the employ of the Company for over six years, starting in as a stu SEATTLE CHIEF OPERATORS. Miss Hand Miss Phelan H. T. Parkinson Miss Onsum Miss Van Brocklin North Office East Office City Chief Opr. East Office Main Office Miss Hawkes Miss Peterson Miss LaVelle Miss Allen Miss Peterson Queen Anne Office Ballard Office Main Office Queen Anne Office North Office dent. This amount of experience, coupled with unusual ability, particularly fitted her for the position she was last holding. The Long Distance operating force in Seattle are very much interested in their Seattle-Tacoma service, and have been doing their utmost to reduce the period from filing time to start of conversation, or definite report, as much as possible. The average period for three days in the month of February from filing time to start of conversation, or first definite report, was two minutes and thirty-six seconds. This traffic is now handled between toll boards with the skeleton inward ticket. The General Superintendent has authorized the adoption of the No. 2 method, and as soon as this is placed in effect, we hope to reduce this to one minute. Harry Buland of the Wire Chief's Maintenance Department, Seattle, has an aspira tion to become a first-class switchboard man. He is putting in his leisure hours studying practical work with O. Rydstrom, Main Office. The Western Electric Company has a gang of men at work at Seattle Main Exchange putting in new storage batteries, fuse panels, and main distributing rack, under Foreman Stokes. A new toll board is expected to arrive in Seattle by the 12th of February and will be immediately installed. A number of the Telephone Class took a trip to Tacoma on a recent Sunday, where they inspected the plant of the Home Telephone Company of that place. Oakland Division. Since the first of the year, 165 farmer contracts have been taken in the Oakland Division, and during the same period fiftyone instruments were delivered. In Marin : County, previous to the beginning of the year, our Company did not have any farmer subscribers. Mr. A. V. Keyes has secured sixty contracts along the Coast. This is a very sparsely settled district, and in view of the fact that the subscribers will be compelled to use copper the results are pleasing. In the other district, Mr. Cheek and Mr. Wallace are demonstrating to the farmer the value of the telephone as a saving to live stock, sole leather, and patience. Some time ago a little trouble was experienced with the farmers from several lines in Contra Costa County, they asking our Company for a great many impossible concessions on account of having put up their own lines. When the matter was taken up at a meeting and thoroughly gone over, they "allowed the Telephone Company had given them all that it had promised and they guessed they were just trying to get a little something for nothing." A meeting of the operators of the Eureka Exchange was held at the office on the evening of January 15, twenty-four operators being present. The meeting was called to order by Miss Allen, Chief Operator. The following subjects were discussed: "Careful Testing in Order to Insure Good Service," "Prompt Disconnecting," "Proper Use of Various Phrases." The operators were invited to ask questions. To this a great number responded, and the different questions were discussed as they were brought up. Considerable interest was manifested at this meeting by the operators, and good results have already been noticed. Manager H. S. Johnson, Santa Rosa, has resigned, effective March 1, 1908, and is going into business for himself. Mr. Johnson made a fine record in the Santa Rosa district. William De Cateret, Manager at Napa, recently distinguished himself by capturing a man who was trying to steal his horse and buggy. San Joaquin Division. On January 10, 1908, the following changes of positions became effective in the San Joaquin Division: Mr. Gerhard G. Jahn, heretofore Manager of The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company at Lemoore, California, was promoted to the position of Manager of the Madera, California, Exchange, filling the vacancy made by the resignation of Mr. W. G. Smith. Mr. J. H. Yount, Cashier and Recorder at Hanford, assumed the management of the Lemoore Exchange, the position of Cashier and Recorder at Hanford being filled by the promotion of Collector Lawrence M. Phillips, his position being filled by Mr. G. L. Meadows. On February 1, 1908, the following changes of positions became effective in the San Joaquin Division: Mr. Arthur T. Bond, heretofore Manager at Coalinga, was promoted to the Managership of the Visalia Exchange, made vacant by the resignation of Mr. L. C. Hatfield. Mr. J. H. Yount was promoted to the Coalinga Managership, and Mr. W. L. Eldridge, Clerk in the Division Chief Operator's Office, was given the Lemoore Exchange. Mr. W. G. Smith, for five years Manager of the Madera, California, Exchange, resigned that position on January 5. Mr. L. C. Hatfield, who for the past nine months has been Local Manager for this Company at Visalia, tendered his resignation, to become effective February 1. Sacramento Division. There is quite a settlement of Austrians at Jackson and Manager Gardner is signing up a large number for telephone service. In each case it is necessary to teach them how to use the telephone. Recently in one instance it took him fifteen minutes to convince the prospective subscriber that he could talk Austrian over the telephone. An Austrian subscriber of the Jackson Exchange had recently a telephone installed and on one occasion in calling for a number was informed by the operator that the subscriber called "did not answer." He replied "that was funny, as he had talked to him yesterday." Mr. Myron Smith, formerly employed by the Equipment Department, has accepted the position as Collector at our Reno Exchange. Mr. F. A. Warren, Chief Clerk for the Construction Department at Stockton, has been in Sacramento for a few days on a short visit home. Employées in Woodland gave a surprise party on the evening of February 11 in honor of Miss Nannie Wallace, who joined the local force three months ago. The occasion being Miss Wallace's birthday, the employées remembered her with a gold watch pin, which was presented in their behalf by Manager Roberts. 18: the force is now busily engaged with cable work. A meeting was held in Spokane on Wednesday, February 12, for the purpose of organizing a telephone school. Each member present was to consider himself a committee of one to look up various textbooks on Telephony, which matter is to be brought up at the next meeting, and decide on what books are to be used for that purpose. Each member, too, is to solicit the various departments for members and it was the intention to call a mass meeting on Friday February 21, to organize. Regular Said the Red Bluff Sentinel of January meetings will be held weekly. "This is a good place to live and work in," said L. M. Brown, local manager for The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, this morning. "Besides that I like my office and its equipment, which is thoroughly modern and up to date, I like the city itself, of which the same things may be said. There seems to be no boom here, but a steady and substantial growth, which is far better." Inland Division. Mrs. Nellie B. West is the new Manager at Pomeroy, Washington, succeeding Mrs. Daisy Hill, who resigned January 16. This is not Mrs. West's first experience as Manager, as she was at one time Manager at Sumpter, Oregon. D. E. Brooks was transferred on January 28 from the position as lineman at Lewiston, Idaho, to that of Manager at Grangsville, Idaho, succeeding C. L. Wilson. Robert R. McGoughey resigned his position as Recorder and Cashier at Baker City, Oregon, on February 1 to accept a position with a mining company. Miss Marion Stafford, transferred from Chief Operator, succeeds Mr. McGoughey and in turn is succeeded by Ethel Moore, Miss Moore being promoted from position as Long Distance Operator. The work of installing equipment at the new West Office Exchange, Spokane, is progressing rapidly. All of the machines, switchboards, and racks are in place and At La Grande, Oregon, the Company is using now, for charging purposes, a gasoline engine, which it was necessary to install on account of a recent cold snap freezing up tight the water plant in connection with the electric power plant. The following appointments were made in the Maintenance Department, effective February 1: S. P. Reynolds, City Foreman; J. C. Waterbury, City Wire Chief; M. George, Assistant City Wire Chief. A new telephone directory has just been completed for all subscribers in Baker, Grant, and Harney Counties. The following item appeared in the Los Angeles Express January 27, 1908, under the column entitled "Twenty-Five Years Ago": "Telephone subscribers who complain that their instruments get out of order should remember that there never was an electrical instrument in existence that did not get out of order, and the telephone is the most delicate of them all. Give the little instrument a fair chance; talk into it in a natural tone of voice (it is not deaf) at the proper distance and it will prove a good servant, but if it don't work report the fact to the office. The telephone has no legs to walk to the office and report its illness any more than your water pipe has if it gets out of order. Give the telephone an opportunity to do its work." Southern Division. Reconstruction of the old Main Office building at 622 South Hill Street, Los An geles, has been completed, affording satisfactory accommodations for all the Division and City Offices on the first floor. The second floor is at present occupied by the Long Distance Toll Board and the Operating School, as well as the retiring rooms and the library. The Moorpark Rural Telephone Company has been formed, with Erastus Everitt, President; Lew C. Fox, Vice-President, and W. M. P. Wright, Secretary and Treasurer; with eleven subscribers, making exchange connection with our Moorpark Office. A number of Los Angeles Maintenance men of The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company partook of a banquet at Levy's Café on the evening of February 15. Plates were set for nineteen. Following is a list of those who were present: Mr. Le Coste of East Office; Messrs. Frisbee, Herman, and Stevenson, of Boyle Office; Messrs. Jilson and Smith, of West Office; Messrs. Ramsey and Smith, of Main Office, and Messrs. Grabt, Reeb, Sevton, Aykroyd, Carlisle, Sherman, Harmon, Nye, Kelsey, Foster, and Ainsworth, of South Office. The members of the Athlos Club were entertained on the evening of February 14 with an informal social by the Misses E. Grimaud and E. F. Bridges, Secretary and Treasurer of the club, at the home of the latter. The early part of the evening was devoted to a business meeting, at which Mr. E. R. Jillson, President of the club, tendered his resignation and Mr. Lidster was appointed to the vacancy. During the remainder of the evening the order was music, dancing, games, and refreshments. Mr. William Nye, champion singles tennis player of South Office, was defeated in a single match by Mr. Earl Hayes, one of the Athlos Club's youngest players, at the West Office court. Score, 6-4, 6-0. The Main Office School of Telephony held a meeting on February 4, at which Mr. J. R. Adams gave a practical demonstration on the use, care, and construction of a storage battery plant. James A. Lynch, formerly Manager at Redlands, has been transferred to San Bernardino, succeeding Mr. E. Wise, who resigned in the former's favor owing to con ditions offered by consolidation of interests in Redlands. Messrs. O. Cole, Jr., representing the Traffic Department, and S. H. Hess of the Engineering Department are in Los Angeles perfecting studies for the installation of a new method of operation between Los Angeles and Pasadena. The progress of work along these lines is being watched with considerable interest, owing to the improvements commented upon in the February issue of the magazine, in connection with the trans-bay system between San Francisco and Oakland. Oregon Division. Mr. Alonzo Wilson, formerly connected with the Construction Department in Oakland, California, has been appointed County Manager over Linn and Benton Counties, Oregon, with headquarters at Albany, Oregon. Mr. Wilson succeeds Mr. R. H. Warfield, resigned. The organization and growth of a farmers' telephone company, known as the Applegate Valley Telephone Company, at Grants Pass, has been the subject of considerable interest to the people in that vicinity. This company was organized about a year ago with twenty subscribers. At the present time they have eighty. The company is growing rapidly and is interesting a large rural population in a very progressive community in the use and value of the telephone. Mr. F. H. Hazard, City Wire Chief, Portland, has been promoted to the position of Inspector in the Division Wire Chief's Department. He has been succeeded as City Wire Chief by E. L. Ritter, formerly As sistant City Wire Chief. The Coburg Farmers' Telephone Company, Coburg, Lane County, Oregon, has signed a contract with The Pacific Telephone Company agreeing to operate and maintain the exchange at Coburg. The company starts out with a subscription list of fifty, with good prospect of increasing their subscription list to at least 150 subscribers. President Henry T. Scott visited Portland on February 13, attending the Direct |