The Telephone Goes West- the world's first Cell Phone
25 x 18 Signed Limited Edition Print - Shipped flat in a protective carton. Free Shipping.
The Telephone Goes West is printed on French Rag Coat paper, a limited edition of 500.
It is 1898 before the Bell Telephone Company and Independents were established in rural communities. Do-it-yourself rural cooperatives provided telephone services. Groups of farmers and ranchers would purchase the equipment and install a small system themselves. In 1907, the Census Bureau counted 565,000 rural telephones and 486,000 miles of wire. In some instances, telephone wire was strung as the top wire on barbed wire fences servicing 50 to 100 miles.
"As you walk in the store, you catch a glimpse of this new contraption. Two ranchers are hearing for their first time words spoken through a wire over forty miles away.