Northern California Wildfire Destroys American Telephony Museum

alphadogg writes: In this day of smartphones, cell towers and wearables, the American Museum of Telephony in the Mountain Ranch community of northern California preserved artifacts of a much different world of communications. But the museum, along with surrounding residences, burnt to the ground late last week during the raging Butte Fire and it's assumed that the collection is largely lost. The operator is vowing to rebuild.

American Museum of Telephony?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your link could not be completed, please try again."

website's back up...

[Thud457]

JKL MUSEUM OF TELEPHONY
Dedicated to preserving telephone history

oh. oops, ow. SNRK

Never mind ....

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still plenty of museum pieces delivering "broadband internet" all over the USA.

Flashback to WKRP...

[jeffb (2.718)]

If only the Phone Cops [youtube.com] had been able to call in the Phone Firemen...

There were melted cords everywhere!

[NotDrWho]

Do you know what burning copper smells like? DO YOU? Well, I do!

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[TWX]

So, how's the MG running these days?

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[nytes]

Oh, the telephony!!!

Another name for the American Museum of Telephony

[Applehu Akbar]

Seattle.

Re:Another name for the American Museum of Telepho

[NotDrWho]

Skylar and me, we prefer the warm, rich sound that you can only get from a pre-1930's phone. But I guess the rest of you are used to settling for your lame digital phones.

[takes hit off bong]

And did I mention that we were into that band before they went mainstream and poseurs like you jumped on the bandwagon?

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[TWX]

*laugh*

On the other hand, back when Bell owned literally the entire telephone network from the handset to the central office they designed their telephones to last for decades and to provide good call quality. Once the regulations changed and now anyone could manufacture/sell a telephone, the quality of non-Western-Electric phones dropped so far that there are many old landline phones that have terrible acoustic properties. I know because my parents were cheapskates and we had them.

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[plcurechax]

On the other hand, back when Bell owned literally the entire telephone network from the handset to the central office they designed their telephones to last for decades and to provide good call quality. Once the regulations changed and now anyone could manufacture/sell a telephone, the quality of non-Western-Electric phones dropped so far that there are many old landline phones that have terrible acoustic properties. [...]

Well, really early telephones have terrible acoustic properties, from the simple fact that the microphone and speaker elements were quite primitive -- carbon elements (IIRC) on paper cones with Alnico (not ceramic or rare earth) magnets.

I think it may of been the 1950s or 60s, perhaps earlier, but Bell standardized on filtering audio to pass voice frequencies [wikipedia.org] in the 300 to 3400 Hertz range. I believe this (or a 300-3k Hz simplification) became an ITU standard.

I agree the build quality of Western Electric (a

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[drinkypoo]

Didn't Pac Bell send its old ESS switches down to sunny Mexico?

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[TWX]

There was no ample warning; the radio talked about people that were literally pulled from their homes by the firemen attempting to fight the fire as the fireline approached residences. The people responsible for the museum were probably themselves too busy with their personal problems to take time to save the museum contents.

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[TWX]

When Microsoft attempted to implement it I remember people pronouncing it "telePHONY". But I think they were limiting that pronounciation to Microsoft's implementation only.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[charlesr44403]

In fact the really rare stuff was saved. They had hours to get stuff out of there before the fire reached it.

Raging butte fire?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are not going to be mature about this.

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[lesincompetent]

Meucci akhbar!

Working link

[rfrenzob]

http://jklmuseum.com/ [jklmuseum.com]

Hahahaha

[wonkey_monkey]

raging Butte Fire

Hahaha haha. Hahahaha. Hah!

Operator is rebuilding

[Pascoea]

I see what you did there.

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[TWX]

Their website shows very old party-line and hand-crank wooden phones. I doubt that there are many examples of these left as when they would have been replaced in-service they wouldn't have been worth anything.

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[PopeRatzo]

Their website shows very old party-line and hand-crank wooden phones.

How do you have a Telephony Museum and not have a Motorola RAZR flip phone?

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[TWX]

Wow. I have two Telephony Museums!

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[drinkypoo]

Their website shows very old party-line and hand-crank wooden phones. I doubt that there are many examples of these left as when they would have been replaced in-service they wouldn't have been worth anything.

There's probably lots of examples in barns still, but they're rotten, rusty, and moldy. People with space don't throw things away.

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[konohitowa]

Stuff like this? http://www.shopgoodwill.com/au... [shopgoodwill.com] They're really not that uncommon. Yes, one case is anecdotal but I knew exactly where to do a search to find one, and that's not the only example at Goodwill. eBay will get you more but at higher prices.Now, I would imagine they might have had specific makes & models that were more collectible than others, but the style of phone isn't in short supply.

"American Telephony Museum" -- not a link

[seven of five]

Clicking it gets you nowhere.

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[ganjadude]

this post would be in morse code however it wont allow me to post it

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[dkman]

... --- ...

Filter error: Your comment looks too much like ascii art.

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[cusco]

Of course they are, just like the idiots that have their house destroyed by flooding for the third or fourth time always rebuild in the same spot.

Don't Panic!

[RealGene]

Fortunately, the Telephone Museum, AKA The New England Museum of Telephony in Ellsworth, Maine hasn't burned down.
This museum has several *working* switches, including a #3 and a #5 crossbar switch, dozens of switchboards, and other cool stuff.
http://thetelephonemuseum.org/exhibits/

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[erikscott]

If you're reading this article, you may also be interested in the E. H. Danner Museum of Telephony located on the grounds of Fort Concho National Historic Landmark in San Angelo, TX. While there, you might as well see the Robert Wood Johnson Museum of Frontier Medicine, also on the grounds. Don't go on a full stomach. And that's about all there is to do in San Angelo.

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[Thud457]

Well, if you the sort of degenerate freak that's into that sort of thing, there's still the Georgia Rural Telephone Musuem [tripadvisor.com]

"#1 of 1 things to do in Leslie, GA"

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[erikscott]

Hmmm. If I degenerate enough, and if I just happen to be in Walking Dead country, then yeah... I might visit the place. But that's two unlikely things that have to happen at the same time. :-)

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[Nethead]

The The Herbert H Warrick Jr. Museum of Communications in Seattle has several working switches also. Two floors of cruft in a still working CO. [museumofco...ations.org]

unlike modern phones...

[The Grim Reefer]

Unlike modern phones, some of those probably will just need the ashes blown out and a new wood case and will probably be fully functional again.

When I was young, we had one of those bakelite rotary phones. That was a hell of a tough phone. I'm pretty sure the handset would be considered a deadly weapon by today's standards. My sister and I laughed like crazy when we saw someone in a spy movie kill someone with the same model phone we had.

Nice non-link, there

[damn_registrars]

The summary shows an underline, and my cursor changes to indicate that I can click on it. Yet, nothing happens when I click on it. Nice mangling of html there, slashdot. Is it supposed to be some sort of twisted play on the fact that the museum burned to the ground?

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[meadow]

Its odd, I was just reading the other day about the earliest known manuscript [wikipedia.org] of Beowolf that was badly damaged in a fire in 1731. In this day and age when everyone is forced to pursue practical education and training, I would love to learn Old English (and several other really cool ancient languages like Hittite) just because its cool. Its a sign of a collapsing culture when education becomes more and more about "necessities" like vocational and job training and you can't even get a course in Sanskrit or

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[Thud457]

Well, they built the National Corvette Museum in a place prone to sinkholes [google.com].

Conversely, the Salvador Dali Museum [thedali.org] in St Pete was built to resist hurricanes. Time will tell on that one.

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[cusco]

I was living, well, surviving, in St. Pete when the Dali museum opened. My roommate and I took one of rare days off to make 'greenies', and go to the museum. Neither of us had ever backed with pot before, and were really disappointed half an hour later when we felt almost nothing. We left for the museum anyway, and as we were walking into the building I stopped and said to Dan, "Holy crap, I just realized how fucked up I am!" He agreed that he was every bit as toasted. It was a very interesting four ho

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[Chris Mattern]

He demonstrated powered flight several years before the Wright brother at an air show in Paris in plane called: 14 Bis.

According to all the references I can find, that flight happened in 1906, three years after Kitty Hawk. Many people who were unaware of the Wright Brothers (afraid of having their ideas stolen, the Wrights mostly avoided publicity) hailed him as the first man to fly, but the Wrights did manage it beforre him.

Sad, but it's not the only such museum

[markana]

There's a very nice telephone museum (with lots of working switch gear) in Seattle. And another little one in the (very) rural town of Cle Elum, WA. And probably lots more scattered around the country. I suspect that these smalls town are where the old Strowgers, crossbars, and crank phones retire to. Then the townsfolk build museums around them when they finally die :-)

Raging Butte Fire

[Supp0rtLinux]

... "raging Butte Fire"... seriously? its called the raging butt fire? W T F