Connections Museum
The Connections Museum (formerly the Herbert H. Warrick Jr. Museum of Communications, originally the Vintage Telephone Equipment Museum), is located in Centurylink's Duwamish Central Office at East Marginal Way S. and Corson Avenue S. in Georgetown, Seattle, Washington. It "reveals the history of the telephone and the equipment that makes it all work." The museum was originally sponsored by the Washington Telephone Pioneers, and is now a part of the Telecommunications History Group, based in Denver, CO. It features vintage equipment from AT&T, Western Electric, Pacific Northwest Bell, USWest, and other organizations.
History
The museum was founded by Don Ostrand and Herb Warrick, both employees of Pacific Northwest Bell. As a result of the Modification of Final Judgement in 1984, the AT&T monopoly was broken up, and an organizational mandate required Pacific Northwest Bell to modernize their aging telephone switching equipment. Realizing that this was perhaps the last opportunity to save examples of vintage electromechanical switches, Warrick requested that Pacific Northwest Bell (PNB) make arrangements to transfer ownership of selected equipment to the Telephone Pioneers and allow them to set up a museum somewhere in Seattle.[1] Originally envisioned to be one of three telephone museums in the Pacific Northwest, this was the only one that materialized.[2] Work started in 1985,[3] and the museum opened to the public in Fall of 1989.[4] Frames of electromechanical switching equipment were brought in from existing central offices, and lifted to the third floor by cranes. From there, volunteers rewired the equipment to make it functional once again.
In 2016 the museum was featured on a popular YouTube channel run by Tom Scott, as part of the "Things You Might Not Know" series.[5]
Collection
The museum has the following notable items in its collection:
- 1923 Panel Switch from Seattle's Rainier/Parkway exchange
- 1942 No. 1 Crossbar from Seattle's Lakeview Exchange
- c. 1950s No. 5 Crossbar from the Adams exchange on Mercer Island
- c. 1970s #3 ESS
- North Electric CX 100, from Lester, Washington, originally installed in the U.S.S. California
- Step-By-Step (SXS) equipment
- 755 and 756 dial PBXs
- Teletype equipment from the 1920s through the 1980s
- A red GPO telephone box, flown to Seattle from the UK[6]
Most of the artifacts in the museum's collection are functional, and are maintained regularly by volunteers. The electro-mechanical switching systems, particularly the No. 1 and Panel offices, are the only remaining switches of their type in the world that are still functioning.[7] The No.5 crossbar office is one of two that operate in a museum setting in the U.S. (the other is at The Telephone Museum in Ellsworth, Maine). Although they are no longer connected to the PSTN, visitors can make calls between the switches in the museum.
References
- ^ "Telephone Magick". Telephone Magick. Retrieved 2019-09-23.
- ^ "Mercer Islander saw value in old phone technology - Mercer Island Reporter". Mercer Island Reporter. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
- ^ "Past still calls to us at museum". The Seattle Times. 2008-07-17. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
- ^ "Vintage Telephone Museum". KOMO News. 1989-09-18. Retrieved 2016-06-17 – via Youtube.
- ^ Tom Scott (2016-12-12), In Old Movies, Why The Dial Tone After Someone Hangs Up?, retrieved 2017-01-10
- ^ Broom, Jack (8 Sep 1995). "But Does It Take Dimes?". Seattle Times. Retrieved 17 Jun 2016 – via spl.org.
- ^ Autumn, Sarah. Full Mechanical: Care and Feeding of Your Panel Machine Switching System. Museum of Communications: Unpublished, Privately held record. pp. 4, 5.
External links
- Official website
- Connections Museum's channel on YouTube
- Museum of Communications - Virtual tour
- 2005 Visit to the Museum of Communication - Telephone World
47°32′26″N 122°19′25″W / 47.54056°N 122.32361°W
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