This week's column focused on the origins of telephone service in the Spokane region. Surprisingly, Spokane wasn't where the first telephone was installed, but rather in Colfax by Charles Hopkins, who owned the local paper. He and many other entrepreneurs were buying up old Army telegraph lines and converting them to use as telephone lines, even though the wires were often made of steel, just like fence wire. 

Hopkins tells of hearing about the sale of the Army telegraph line from Colfax to Almota and riding to the fort at WallaWalla to make a bid in the auction for the line. He had only a $20 gold piece and was sure that another buyer would trump that to get his hands on the 19-mile line, put up at great expense by the military. When Hopkins walked into the quartermaster's office in WallaWalla, he was the only bidder and the quartermaster begrudgingly accept the paltry bid. But while finishing the paperwork, another businessman walk in and offered $250 for the line, which halted the paperwork abruptly. An argument commenced about what was fair and Hopkins declared that the quartermaster had accepted the bid, fair and square. Even more begrudgingly, the quartermaster agreed. "And that's how I got into the telephone business for a $20 gold piece," said Hopkins, years later. 

The signal over the old wires was so faint that you had to go into a sealed booth at the telegraph office and scream into the microphone to be heard. Because of the novelty of the technology, each user had to be instructed in how to operate the hand set and sometimes users were be yelling into the earpiece and straining to hear the answer while holding the microphone to their ear. 

Read the story of Spokane's early telephone service here. 

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