July 31, 1932 – With the completion of the second & third floors of the Northwestern Bell Telephone building on South Linn Street, the team of switchboard operators move in to what they soon will call The Graham Cracker. On this day, all of Iowa City converts to the latest innovation – the dial telephone.
When Alexander Graham Bell introduced his new innovation at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, no one believed the telephone was much more than a plaything. But within five years of when the first telephone exchange office opened in Iowa City (1881), the whole city was buzzing with excitement. Over the next 100 years, the telephone transformed everything. Come read how it all started.
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