South Slope Cooperative Telephone Company, Inc.

On April 1, 1958, at 8:00 p.m., a meeting of the representatives of communities of Fairfax, Newhall, Norway, Walford and Watkins was held in the general assembly room, which was nearly all of the north half of the second floor of the Norway High School.

Those present: From Fairfax Milton Chadima, Wm. Chalupsky, Prank A. Jandik, Warren C. Dennis, and W. C. Stallman, From Newhall Roy Schminke, Herald Grovert, Alphonse Erger, Harvey Werning, Arleigh Boddicker, and George Good. From Norway H. O. Schloeman, Otis Tuttle, Henry Montague, Frank Volz, Victor Hemeseth, and Norman McNee. From Walford - Robert J. Wodstrchill, Floyd L. Johnson, and Donald C. Hass. From Watkins Walter A. Volz, Melvin Brecht, and E. J. Schmuecker along with Attorney Jim Milroy of Vinton and Rural Electrification Administration Supervisor Mr. Keleher. Apparently there were previous meetings because this group held a discussion regarding Fairfax joining the original four (4) town groups.

After deciding how each community would be represented, the following Board of Directors were elected: Fairfax - Milton Chadima, Warren Dennis and W. C. Stallman; Newhall Arleigh Boddicker, Herald Grovert and Roy Schminke; Norway H. O. Schloeman, Otis Tuttle and Frank Volz; Walford -Floyd Johnson; Watkins E. J. Schmuecker. Officers of the new board were: Otis Tuttle, President; Herald Grovert, Vice President; E. J. Schmuecker, Secretary-Treasurer.

On April 4, 1958, the newly elected Board of Directors met at the Dennison and Partridge Lumber Company in Norway and adopted the original Articles of Incorporation. The signers of the Articles of Incorporation were the newly elected board plus Henry (Penny) Montague, Leona Melhus, Sidney Weise, Dean Risdal and Edward L. Smith.

The South Slope Cooperative Telephone Company name was chosen due to the geographic location of the original system that served the towns of Newhall, Norway-Watkins and Fairfax- Walford. The system begins about six (6) miles south of Venton and slopes southerly to the Iowa River Valley.

On April 11, 1958, the State of Iowa issued the cooperative its Certification of Incorporation.

In April of 1959, the cooperative hired its first Manager, Orval R. Blough. In June of 1959, the board signed its first REA loan contract and mortgage in

the amount of $654,000.00. Temporary business office was set up in the Royal Tuttle seed corn building and later in the old Standard Station building. During the summer of 1960, Bjorsen Construction Company of Lisbon built the community dial switching offices and Stromberg Carlson installed the switching equipment. Schoff built the first building in Newhall on the back (east) part of a lot just behind Kolsto's Garage. The building was taken down in the late 1970's

and the present building sets where Kolsto's Garage sat. been the original St. Michaels Catholic Church that had been moved there from When the Norway building site was purchased, it was occupied by what had

just east of the present Catholic Church sometime in the late 1800's. It known as the RCMPS (Roman Catholic Mutual Protection Society), an insurance organization. The original Norway combination headquarter and dial office was sold to the Lenox Insurance Company when the cooperative built its present combination headquarters and dial office in 1982,

The original Fairfax building, which was removed around 1984, was built immediately south of the present Fairfax State Savings Bank on what was then the Ralph Emanual Sr. property.

Prior to this, each community had a telephone company that owned the switchboard and the town lines. All of the rural lines were farmer owned and they paid the town telephone company switching fees.

From 1960 until around 1966, South Slope served about 1,500 cooperative members. During 1966, North Liberty joined the cooperative bringing the total to about 2,500.

June 1, 1971, W. Wayne Edmundson was hired to manage the cooperative until his retirement March 1, 1982.

In 1971, Ely joined South Slope and the cooperative has continued to grow to the present member base of 5,000. Today the cooperative has five (5)) state of the art digital switching offices. The headquarters and all switching buildings are protected with a Halon fire protection system.

Originally the cooperative offered 8 party line service in the rural area and 1, 2 or 4 party line service in the town. During the 1960's and early 1970's, the service was upgraded until the present single party service available today became reality.

On March 1, 1982, Francis Kahle was hired as manager and serves in that capacity today.

The present Board of Directors are: (October 1990) Richard Netolicky. President; Arnold Yanecek, Vice-President; Derald Kimm, Secretary; Delbert Frese, Treasurer, Donald (Bob) Erger, Alden Morrison, and George Neitderhisar, Directors.

Swisher Telephone Company

Was bought out by South Slope in 2008.

In September of 1913, the Coufals Telephone Company was formed and purchased equipment from the Midway Switchboard & Telephone Company of Iowa City, Iowa, at a cost of $200.00.

In the year 1954, the stockholders of Coufals Telephone Company approved a change in the Articles of the company which changed the name of the company to Swisher Telephone Association, a cooperative.

In May of 1957, the Swisher Telephone Association, a cooperative, was dissolved and a new corporation under the name of Swisher Telephone Company was established, for the specific purpose of setting up a telephone dial system for the town and surrounding community of Swisher, Iowa.

Under the name of Swisher Telephone Company, a new dial office was purchased and installed in the year 1958. In 1960, extended area service (EAS) was established with the neighboring town of Fairfax, Iowa. EAS, with the neighboring town of Ely, Iowa, was also established in 1962.

In 1963, the state of Iowa changed the operations of all utilities by establishing the Iowa State Commerce Commission.

The shareholders of Swisher Telephone Company stock saw their first dividend payment in the year 1966.

The year 1967 was an interesting year. Direct distance dialing (DDD) was introduced as a new dialing procedure for long distance calling and also, EAS was established with the large town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This enlarged our local dialing area tremendously. In 1975, it was necessary for the company to discuss and finalize our boundary line agreements with our neighboring telephone companies. This was also the year that the company purchased and installed a new electo- mechanical central office to replace its old switchboard.

1977 was the beginning of a very big building program for the company. An REA loan was granted and the building of a totally buried plant system was activated. The purpose of this construction was to replace old aerial wires and also to provide the necessary equipment for providing private line service for all subscribers.

A new business office building was constructed in 1979. This was the first time that the company had one location from which to transact all of its business. Previous to this business was conducted from 4 separate locations, all of which were personal homes of part-time employees. 1979 also marked the first time that full-time employees were hired by the company. The company was now in a position to offer qualified, professional telephone service to its customers.

The latest and by far the most expensive venture to date was the purchase of a computerized central office switch. This switch was purchased from Northern Telecom, installed and put into service in December of 1988.

Amana Society Service Co.

Was bought out by South Slope in 2001.

The story of telephony in Amans cannot be sold without first relating a hirte history of Amana itself. The Amana Colontes were sented in 1955 by German Pietists. These people, who called themselves the Community of True Inspira tion, had left Germany in 1842 to escape religious persecution and diffienft eco-nomic times. They first settled in Ebenezer, New York, near Buffato. In 1945, a communal system was established, which remained essentially unchanged for 89 years. All land and buildings were owned by the community. Families were assigned living quarters, and each individual over school age worked at assigned tasks: in the kitchens, fields, factories or shops.

The need for more land precipitated the move to lows. Amana was the first village settled along the lowa River, and eventually a total of 26,000 acres of land was purchased, and six more villages established.

In 1932, the people voted to abandon the communal system and incorporated their holdings, issuing stock in the profit- sharing Amana Society. The Amana Church continues as the religious foundation of the Amanas.

Even though the Amana people lived as a communal, they did not for the most part shun technological innovations. When news of Bell's 1876 invention reached the community, they could see the practicality of telephones in the vil-lages. The Amana people decided to build their own telephone system. They of-ten copied or modified national brands for their own use, rather than purchasing them. And so, in 1880, after studying the subject of telephony, Friedrich Hahn, Sr. (1843-1917) of Middle Amana, a cabinet and clock maker, built a magneto telephone. He built the walnut cabinet, as well as the generator, switch hook, ringer movements and induction coils inside the cabinet. The phone had a Blake transmitter. Mr. Hahn went on to build and maintain many of Amana's earliest phones.

These phones were designed for a grounded telephone system. This meant a single overhead wire ran to each phone, and the phones were connected to "ground" using the earth itself as a conductor to complete the circuit. This sys-tem worked well until electric power lines were strung over existing telephone wires, creating disruptive static. The Amanas didn't have to worry about power lines until 1937, but natural electricity--thunderstorms--creating quite a bit of static. Lightning arrester ground switches, made in the Amanas, were used to disconnect the phones during thunderstorms. Repeating coils, made in the Ama-nas after 1900, were attached to telephone poles at intervals. These harnessed the inductance to reduce attenuation--the tendency of a telephone signal to grow weaker the longer the line.

The first single-line magneto service was established between Amana and Homestead before the turn of the century. Soon telephone lines connected all seven villages and switchboards were located in the general store of each vil-lage. These wall switchboards were commonly called "cut-in" boards, and were used in conjunction with wall telephones. Telephones were located in the gener-al stores, railroad depots, doctors' offices and pharmacies

After Priedrich Hahn's death in 1917, the telephone system became the ince of three men: Adam Clemens (1879-1976) of Amarna, Charles Bicher (1909-1984) of Homestead, and Adolph Heinemann (1875-1967) of Midt Amana. These three men looked after the pole lines between the villages installed and serviced the instruments and switchboards, and kept the system good repair. They created the essence of the system, and carried it forward in "modern" times.

Adolph Heinemann was particularly innovative, developing and modifying various telephony equipment, and building more telephones as needed. He de veloped a multi-line rotary switch which routed the circuits from the Middle Amana store switchboard to a switchboard at his residence. This allowed him to receive, switch and send messages at night and other times when the store closed. These patchcords were later installed in all the general stores to allow for night service in case of emergencies.

With the reorganization of 1932, the use of telephones increased dramatical ly. At that time, the present system of private ownership of propertyw adopted, but the utility systems, including the telephone system, remained with in the Amana Society. In August of 1932, Bell Telephone extended its long dis tance service to the Amanas. Before that time, the Amanas had no long distance service and relied on the railroad telegraph and postal service. The 1930's were busy years, as the Amana Society regularly employed men to clear brush, repair lines and install wires and phones.

Shortly after the "Great Change" as it was locally called, Adam Clemens ceased telephone work and became involved with land surveying. In 1937, Charles G. Eichacker was appointed manager of what was informally referred to within the Amana Society Corporation as the Amana Telephone Company, a position he held until retirement in 1971.

Desk telephones did not gain popularity in the Amanas until the 1940's. Desk phones were commonly Stromberg-Carlson or Kellogg Masterphone. These desk phones would have been used with desk generators, which were made in Amana. With the increased use of desk phones, the Amana Society Board of Di rectors decided parties preferring desk phones, rather than wall phones, had to purchase those phones privately. The manager, Mr. Eichacker, had to approve the phone before it could be hooked up to the lines.

In April 1941, the Amana Society Board of Directors took initial steps to form a separate telephone company known as the AMANA SOCIETY TELE PHONE COMPANY, with the Amana Society owning 100% of the stock. In 1942, this new company became a reality. That same year the Amana Tele-phone Company converted to a North Electric dial system. This relaymatic switchboard was located in Amana and served all seven villages. In 1946, a se-cond relaymatic switchboard was installed at South Amana to relieve the Amana witchboard; it served South and West Amana.

In 1956, the relaymatic switchboard at Amana was changed to a Kellogg 7-2 ossbar switchboard which remained in service until 1971, when it was re-Jaced with a North NX-2 switchboard. North Dial equipment remained in use

until 1986, when the Amana Telephone Company installed a Northern Telecom DMS-10 digital system.

The Amana Telephone Company was reorganized in 1971, becoming a divi-sion of the Amana Society Service Co., a general utility company that includes water and electric service. Leonard Haldy (1928-1978) of Middle Amana, man-aged the Service Company from 1971 until his death in 1978. During that time, the system was converted to underground lines and 100% single-party service. The present manager, Terry Hershberger, was appointed in 1978.

The Amana Heritage Society's Museum of Amana History has a collection of primitive telephone equipment from communal Amana. This collection features the 1880 magneto wall telephone built by Friedrich Hahn, Sr., Adolph Heine-mann's switchboards, and other telephony equipment made and used in Amana. This equipment was gathered and documented by Art Krueger of Macon, Mis-souri, over a 20-year period. The Amana Heritage Society purchased the collec-tion with the help of a grant from the United States Independent Telephone Pioneer Association Hall of Fame Foundation.