The Telephone Museum

10/13/2026

Soon to be on display at the Maine State Museum. Go check it out!

📞 Can you hear me now?! 📞

For 32 years, this switchboard ran 24 hours a day in Elden and Barbara Hathaway’s living room in Bryant Pond. The Hathaways, their children, and a few employees worked as operators.

In the 1950s, Americans started using new dial telephones. Many Maine towns were slow to change, and Bryant Pond was the last. After an unsuccessful fight to keep the old phone system and a news story that swept the nation, this switchboard finally fell silent in 1983.

Image ID: Manual Switchboard, Bryant Pond, ME, 1930-1950, MSM 2003.34.1

10/10/2026

Last weekend, we had one last visitor before closing up for the season. They gave the field next to our museum a raving review!

10/01/2026

If you've traveled along Rt1A here in Ellsworth, you might have noticed that our road signs for the museum were not there any longer. Fear not, it wasn't because we closed down. MDOT audited business road signs earlier this year and determined that our wood backed signs were deteriorating and needed to be replaced.

We worked with Caron Signs in Hermon to have two new signs, made from aluminum backing and reflective material. These should last many years and be more visible in all weather conditions.

Pictured is board member Liz Lenart dropping off one of two signs to the MDOT garage to have them reinstalled.

With that said, our last day for the summer season is this Saturday. Stop by this Saturday 10am-4pm to get a tour. If you miss us, then consider stopping by next year, starting every Saturday from beginning of July to end of September.

08/28/2026

We have a piece of the ground station bearing at the museum. Stop by tomorrow 10am-4pm for a tour and look for it by the front door.

08/03/2026

Do you remember the mushroom in downtown Portland, Maine?

https://www.facebook.com/share/1968DdKG1V/

07/04/2026

Seeing Red, White, and Blue in the Archives! 🇺🇸☎️

Happy 250th Birthday, America! While the rest of Downeast Maine is out waving the stars and stripes today, we’re celebrating America's Semiquincentennial with a look inside a standard piece of telecom history: the 25-pair telephone cable.

If you've ever looked inside an old telephone junction box, you might have noticed a beautiful chaos of colorful wires. But there's a strict method to the madness! Developed by AT&T and Western Electric, the standard 25-pair color code uses 5 tip colors and 5 ring colors to identify every single line without a label.

Look closely at our photo: pair #1 (White/Blue) and pair #6 (Red/Blue) bring a little bit of patriotic flair right to the telephone pole! Before fiber optics and digital switching, these copper pairs were the literal nervous system connecting our nation.

📢 Holiday Update: The Museum is closed today, July 4th, so our volunteers can celebrate the holiday with their families.

But don't worry, you can still catch us this summer! Our regular seasonal hours are every Saturday through the end of September, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Come visit us next weekend to see our working vintage switchboards and dive deeper into the tech that kept America talking.

03/18/2026

Happy St Patrick's Day from all of us at The Telephone Museum. Sláinte.

02/03/2026

Check out this video on the brief history of the invention of the area code system.

https://youtu.be/eNASAhsyjxY

This video describes the history of phone numbers in America and explains how area codes revolutionized long distance calling.My original Long Lines video: h...

01/29/2026

Check out the private line pole construction pictured here.

While we are on the topic woods phone lines, here's a Great Northern Line crew in the 1930s. The Maine Forest Service frequently tied into GNP woods lines back in the day, or shared their poles where there were private circuits. GNP had a large network of woods lines throughout territory where fire towers and patrolman camps were located. These guys may be working on a woods line given the worker out in the woods and the single line heading that way. The earliest MFS phone lines were single ground lines. These were later replaced with metallic circuits and eventually multi-pair insulated lines before the radio began to make the woods line obsolete in the 1950's.

01/15/2026

Check out this nice example of a candlestick phone.

A peek into the Old Speck fire tower in the early 1930's. Front and center is the map table and alidade. Sitting on the table is watchman Daniel Wight's candlestick telephone. This was the only communication with the outside world - through a 14 mile metallic circuit line strung on trees to Newry Corner. (Eric Wight photo)