January 25, 1915…The First Transcontinental Phone Call

On January 25, 2015 - TV History

January 25, 1915…The First Transcontinental Phone Call Made

100 years ago today, Alexander Graham Bell (shown below) in New York placed a call to his long time assistant, Thomas Watson in San Francisco at 4 PM Eastern time. The second transcontinental call to San Francisco was made at 4:30 over an even greater distance from Jekyll Island, Georgia, which had to be routed through Boston.

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7 Comments

  1. Michael Duca January 29, 2015

    “You’ll never know just how much I love you”

  2. Jeff Rooney January 26, 2015

    He’s speaking with a technical support rep in New Delhi.

  3. David Breneman January 25, 2015

    Until the introduction of the vacuum tube, a call from New York could only go as far as Denver if you were lucky, and you had to shout to be heard.

  4. Albert J. McGilvray January 25, 2015

    “For English, press one; for Chinese, press two…”

  5. Jay Phelps January 25, 2015

    This is an incredible piece of history. Reading the NY Times story, the cost for a call was very expensive: “New York and San Francisco would be $20.70 for the first three minutes, and $6.75 for each minute thereafter” That was huge cash back then.

  6. Dennis Degan January 25, 2015

    You had to have either a beard or mustache to get in . . . 😉

  7. Bob Brown January 25, 2015

    When asked to describe the call, replied: “You see, wire telephone is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in San Francisco! 😉