December 17, 1880 – The Iowa City City Council passes an ordinance giving the Iowa City Telephone Exchange permission to use city streets for the installation of telephone poles.
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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