Telephone Service Comes to Folkston

By
Lois Barefoot Mays

It’s nearly a century now since the first time Folkston heard the ringing of a telephone. In the summer of 1908, H.J. Davis connected his store in Folkston’s business district to his own home several blocks away. He used the telephone like an intercom system, and his messages were mainly domestic calls, telling his family when he was closing up the evening, and finding out what was cooking for supper that night. Phones were still a luxury, and no other family in town had one. It would be three years before this revolutionary invention connected Folkston with the rest of the world.

In May, 1910, in a massive effort to connect communities across the region, Southern Bell Telephone installed the first long-distance phone in Dr. J.C. Wright’s drug store, on the corner of Main and First Streets, where the first Citizens Bank building is. This single phone served the whole town, and was used only for extremely urgent matters.

By July, 1911, the Folkston Telephone Co. was busily installing poles and crossbars throughout the county, with W.L. O’Cain in charge of the job. About six months later Miss Essie Robinson was working as the day operator and Nord Williams, a popular young man, worked the night shift. There were stories around town that before he got hired, Nord Williams had secretly slipped into the central office and had a chat with every girl on the line. Customers complained that although the young man was kept busy answering calls, he nonetheless spent much of his time “chunking oranges and apples, chewing gum and candy kisses, out of the front and back windows, to his lady friends.”

Early in 1913, Homeland and Folkston were joined over the wires, connecting families, friends and businesses in the two towns. By August, J.V. Gowen had his own phone line in operation from Folkston to Traders Hill. The newspaper editor that week commented that “It is quite the thing for Folkston and Traders Hill to be joined together, and may the winds, rain or lightning never put them asunder.”

In March 1915, the dreaded alarm “Fire!” brought considerable excitement. The telephone exchange room in the bank building caught fire, due to a defective wood stove. Their quick response to the alarm saved the building with only a small loss.
The stockholders of the Folkston company couldn’t agree on how to run the phone company as a business. A crisis was reached in March, 1917, when the fifty-phone capacity Sumpter telephone switchboard, with about two miles of telephone wires, cross-arms, insulators and all the telephone poles, were auctioned at a sheriff’s courthouse sale, to satisfy the 1916 taxes of $6.75. Mr. L. Parker of Odum, Ga. had the successful bid.

In 1918, the Bell Telephone Co moved their long-distance telephone to T.L. Pickren’s grocery store on Main Street. At first, the phone rang so seldom that whenever it’s bell clanged, everyone in the store froze for a moment like statues, fearful of the news it would carry. Most of the time the messages that came over the wires were bad news - deaths or injuries to an out-of-town loved one. Mr. Pickren usually answered the phone, took the message, then hung up. If there was news for someone living in Folkston, Mr. Pickren caught the first boy coming by the store that looked like he could run fast, gave him a nickel and sent him to the home with the message he had received. If the news was for a family living in the county, he immediately rode out there and delivered it personally.

Intense research still does not reveal where the first telephone exchange was located. In 1915 it was located on the upper floor of the old Bank of Folkston building, across the street from the yellow-brick old Citizens Bank building on Main Street. There was also a small apartment on the bank’s top floor and some of the operators lived there. An indoor stairway beginning on the west side of the building leads to the upper floor. At one time, during World War II, there was also an outdoor stairway to the telephone exchange on the eastern side of the building.

The telephone company was sold several times. It was known as the Union Telephone Co. in 1927, and was purchased by J.K. Larson, who also owned several other exchanges. This was a time of expansion for the company as new lines were installed that connected Folkston, Homeland, Traders Hill and the Paxton Place. In 1931, L. Parker regained control of the business, and the Parker family owned it for many years afterwards.

Among those who served as the operator or “Central” and tended the “telephone station” were Miss Essie Robinson, Nord Williams, Albert Phillips, Mrs. James, Mrs. J.P. Dell, Mrs. M.J. Jordan, Miss Bessie Lee Davis, Mrs. Pope, Miss Culling Parker, Miss Doris Nazworth, Miss Audrey Mae Mizell, Mrs. Estelle Ward, Miss Helen Ward, Miss Ruby Davis, Mrs. Frances Millar and Miss Nettie Keene, who was Central for a long time as well as a teacher for many years at the Winokur school.

When Hercules Powder Co. brought a cluster of families to Folkston in the middle 1930s, telephone poles were installed along the right of way from the courthouse to the new neighborhood, and these new families were proudly connected with phone service.

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