Museum of Telephone History(34)

Jonathan Elmore
Jul 31
4 min read

Since I chronically don't plan very well, I went down to Dean A. McGee Street and into the AT&T building to check out the Museum of Telephone History. Unfortunately, I was met with a locked door and a sign that told me I needed to schedule an appointment to come see it. By far not the worst thing that's ever happened to me so I don't get upset by things like this. It's a part of life when volunteers are concerned. I appreciate their efforts in keeping places like this, and so many others, open to us, even if it's only on a Saturday or by appointment. A week went by because I got busy, but I finally looked for the photo of the phone number from the door. I called it and left a message. The next morning I got a call from a gentleman whose name I thought sounded like Augie, but I wasn't sure. So I booked my appointment for the following Tuesday. When I got there, I met the guy from the phone and, sure enough, his name was Augie. Augie Augerstein to be specific. I thought to myself, "This is going to be more than I had hoped it would be." And it was.

We started near the front entrance and Augie asked "Do you know what Bell was trying to invent when he came up with the telephone?" I consider myself an adept trivia nerd, but I couldn't find the answer anywhere in my brain, so he showed mercy and gave me the answer. "Think about this," he said, "his wife and daughter were deaf. He was trying to invent a device that would help them hear. An early version of a hearing aid." It made sense and now that factoid is lodged in my brain. I could tell that Augie had given this tour quite a few times. He had the script in his head down pat, but when I chimed it with a question, he knew the answer without thinking too hard about it. Then, he'd jump back into his tour. In a relatively small gallery, we spent nearly an hour and a half going through the details of each exhibit without getting into mundane information. He would hit the high points of the product or service and follow up with a little story that tied it all together. I had such a great time at this museum and it was all thanks to Augie. Had it not been for him, it would have been a quaint display of old phones, cabinets full of technology, wires, awards, and one Superman suit. But Augie brought this history to life, mainly because he actually lived it. He worked for Bell in its various monikers for over 30 years. He had many different jobs, sometimes simultaneously, while he worked there. He was a trove of information and stories about a subject he's obviously fond about.

As I went through the museum, I would only take a step or two and my host would have a new and interesting fact about one of the pieces nearby. This little museum was packed to the rafters with everything from the shovels they used to use to hand dig the holes that telephone poles went into to the awards that Bell employees would get for certain achievements. There were examples of the first pay phone, novelty phones, the first video phone from 1982, the Pink Princess, and the first phone that was neither black nor cream colored. It was mauve! Mauve? Who picked mauve to be the first color?! There was also a device that showed what used to happen inside a call center when you dialed a number. What's even more cool than that is Augie built that device on his kitchen table. Seeing it work, hearing all the clicks, watching the pegs spin into place made me appreciate the genius that is telecommunications. At each step in the evolution of phones, someone had to invent a new technology and get it implimented into the world. And this museum has every step of that process. The building we were in was a hub of this technology evolution. At one point, there were four floors filled with simple relay devices that would engage to connect one phone to another. Now, with new tech, four floors is down to about 20 square feet. Some pictures hanging in the museum give you an idea of the scale of what used to be common in the phone business. It was unreal and something I had never considered.

Like I said before, I thought I was going to walk into a quaint little museum and hope I spotted a Garfield phone and maybe read about something interesting. Thanks to Augie, it was far more than that. He was the best tour guide I've ever had. Kudos to him and much thanks to him for keeping this museum alive. If you get the chance, and you have an hour to an hour and a half, go see Augie. You'll love it.