In May, 1889, after a representative of the Equitable Telephone Company of Cape Girardeau, Missouri planted the idea to build a telephone line connecting adjoining towns, business men from LaCygne, Pleasanton & Mound City formed a stock company, “Border Telephone Company”.  R.F. Thorne, W.O. Fuller, & George C. Wynkoop, representatives from LaCygne, served on the first board.  With much enthusiasm, the line connecting all three towns was completed by the end of the year and plans to connect to Paola with an eventual link to Kansas City were being discussed. 

On December 17, 1902, the LaCygne City Council granted a telephone franchise to C.R. Baldwin of Kansas City to establish a LaCygne City Exchange.  A few months later, Mr. Baldwin sold the franchise to George W. Yenser.  Mr. Yenser set up a central office over Broadwell’s Drug Store and by May 1, 1903 the LaCygne Telephone Exchange was serving the city with 58 phones.  Arthur Lacy was the first Lineman.  Anna Danner and Grace Whaley were the first telephone operators.  By the beginning of 1904, LaCygne Telephone Exchange was growing with 117 phones in town and 53 phones in the rural district.

While building the LaCygne Exchange, G.W. Yenser was also building some country lines.  In July 1903, Mr. Yenser completed a line to Amsterdam and other points east of town.  October 1903 found connections to Fairview and Prairie Home settlements.  Independent rural lines were under construction in all directions and by various groups with no clear provisions for a central office or other means of connections.   

The telephone snarl was rapidly becoming a problem. On May 26, 1905, representatives from all lines met to discuss what might be done to unite the various lines and furnish service to all.  This led to the formation of Peoples Mutual Telephone Company.  Under direction of Peoples Mutual Telephone Company President, N.D. Patterson, a central switch board was ordered July 7, 1905 and a new office was opened above the LaCygne State Bank at Commercial and Broadway in LaCygne.  Service under Peoples Mutual Telephone began January 1, 1906, with Vida Hensley as day operator and Charles Prentice as night operator. 

During this time, the LaCygne Exchange and Toll lines, started operating under the name of Consolidated Telephone Company and was in competition with Peoples Mutual Telephone Company.  Consolidated Telephone Company was sold to C.F. Miller of Iowa and then sold to C.W. Tucker.  The company name changed under Mr. Tucker to LaCygne Telephone Company. 

As Peoples Mutual Telephone continued to expand into the rural areas, the process to incorporate was started January 3, 1914.  In the  ensuing months, the by-laws were approved , five directors were elected and the charter signed by Elmer Evey, D.W. Grimm, G.B. Jones, W.J. Dyer and Robert Lee on August 26, 1914. 

April 1, 1916, Peoples Mutual Telephone bought the LaCygne Telephone Company and moved all offices to the upper floor of a building located at the southeast corner of Walnut and Broadway.  Exchange lines reached from the Missouri border on the east to Fairview, Prairie Home and other adjoining communities on the west; Stonypoint, Sunnyridge, Hawkeye and Jingo on the North; and in July, 1929 the purchase of the Boicourt Exchange completed the coverage to the south.  Expansions in 1946 moved the offices to the lower floor of the same building. 

With the coming of automation, a new building was built at 224 North Broadway, the same block the original company started in 1905.  This building housed the switching, garages and business office.  Elsie Daniels, Alice McClanahan, Margaret Clark, Marie Daniels, Shirley Frerking, Marjorie Davis, Ethel Lindsey and Marjorie Tribby were operators in 1968 when Peoples Mutual went from switchboard service to a dial system. 1976 brought the completion of upgrading our system to buried cable and to one party service.  General Manager, Frank Mowry, along with board members James E. Stainbrook, Charles E. Brayton, Clyde Hamilton, Frank Weickert and Harold Mooney, Jr. supervised a building expansion and move of the switching and business offices to 210 N Broadway.  An upgrade to digital switching was installed in 1985 and computers became part of the switch and daily routines in 1989 under General Manager, Loyal Lay.

Bibliography:

Independent Telephony in Kansas, published by State Independent Telephone Association of Kansas, 1990, pp85-91.    

Name changes from Peoples Mutual Telephone to Peoples Telecommunications, Inc. in September 1999 to Peoples Telecommunications, LLC in November 2001, the 2000 building addition and the 2005 new warehouse project have all been recent accomplishments of the current board of directors & management and complete the company history.

Questions or problems regarding this web site should be directed to ptl@peoplestelecom.net

Last modified: Tuesday July 20, 2010.