Downtown in Mount Airy in Carroll County, Maryland — The American Northeast (Mid-Atlantic)
The Telephone Exchange Building
1910
Historic Downtown Mount Airy
Photographed by Devry Becker Jones (CC0), June 5, 2022
1. The Telephone Exchange Building Marker
Inscription.
The Telephone Exchange Building. This was the 3rd site of the Mount Airy Telephone Exchange. Telephone exchanges were housed in private residences. Mount Airy's first operator was Bessie Davis, who worked out of this home that was once the hub of modern telephone communication in Mount Airy. Telephone calls, usually using three digit numbers followed by a letter that identified the intended party, would come into this building and into multiple switchboards. Live local operators, known as the "Hello Girls", who were residents and more than likely knew the intended party, would connect the caller. The switch boards had hundreds of little holes in a patch board each connected to a telephone number. To connect an incoming call to a specific telephone number, the operator would insert a patch cord between the hole for the incoming line and the hole of the line of the intended subscriber. There could be multiple subscribers per line: this was known as a party line. Calls could be identified by number of rings, but conversations could easily be listened in on by others, if one remained silent during the conversation. Few single party lines existed. Have times changed?
This was the 3rd site of the Mount Airy Telephone Exchange. Telephone exchanges were housed in private residences. Mount Airy's first operator was Bessie Davis, who worked out of this home that was once the hub of modern telephone communication in Mount Airy. Telephone calls, usually using three digit numbers followed by a letter that identified the intended party, would come into this building and into multiple switchboards. Live local operators, known as the "Hello Girls", who were residents and more than likely knew the intended party, would connect the caller. The switch boards had hundreds of little holes in a patch board each connected to a telephone number. To connect an incoming call to a specific telephone number, the operator would insert a patch cord between the hole for the incoming line and the hole of the line of the intended subscriber. There could be multiple subscribers per line: this was known as a party line. Calls could be identified by number of rings, but conversations could easily be listened in on by others, if one remained silent during the conversation. Few single party lines existed. Have times
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changed?
Erected 2014.
Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Communications • Women.
Location. 39° 22.59′ N, 77° 9.295′ W. Marker is in Mount Airy, Maryland, in Carroll County. It is in Downtown. It is on South Main Street south of Center Street, on the left when traveling north. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 112 S Main St, Mount Airy MD 21771, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Central Maryland. It is also in the American Mid-Atlantic. Globally, it is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once one of the original Thirteen Colonies and also the Antebellum South.
Harris & Ewing, photographers (Public Domain) Via Library of Congress (CN 2016853369), circa 1917
3. Telephone Operators (Hello Girls)
This is a photograph of the switchboard room in a typical Bell System manual telephone exchange. Until the 1970s all telephone operators and their supervisors were exclusively women. The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, a Bell System company owned by AT&T, operated the telephone exchange in Mount Airy. This photograph is of C&P operators, but was taken in Washington DC, not in Mount Airy.
Credits. This page was last revised on April 7, 2025. It was originally submitted on June 6, 2022, by Devry Becker Jones of Washington, District of Columbia. This page has been viewed 740 times since then and 30 times this year. Photos:1. submitted on June 6, 2022, by Devry Becker Jones of Washington, District of Columbia. 2. submitted on June 5, 2022, by Devry Becker Jones of Washington, District of Columbia. 3. submitted on April 7, 2025, by J. J. Prats of Powell, Ohio.
