Telephone service in Seattle began with 90 customers in 1883. One of Seattle's original service providers, Sunset Telephone-Telegraph Company (later Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company, then AT&T) built a new exchange building in 1921 to help handle what was by then 83,347 customers, making half-a-million local telephone calls every day. The Garfield Exchange was built on Queen Anne Hill at 1529 4th Avenue West and was used until the mid-1960s.
This image of telephone operators at work was taken at PT&T's Garfield Exchange shortly after construction. Until the 1950s every phone line ran to an exchange building where young women facing a switchboard connected incoming and outgoing phone calls manually.
Photographer's number: 27294
Caption information source: http://www.qahistory.org/garfield-exchange Caption information source: The Seattle Daily Times, September 2, 1923, page 6
Physical Description: 1 photographic print: b&w ; 7.5 x 9.5 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
