New glass insulator from American Insulator Co. used at Terre Haute exchange

THE TERRE HAUTE EXCHANGE

While the Citizens' Telephone Company actively is a new enterprise for Terre Haute, the organization itself is by no means in its infancy. The company is now, as it has always been, owned and controlled entirely by Terre Haute capital.

In April, 1886, the Citizens' Telephone Company was incorporated by Andrew J. Crawford, Andrew Grimes and Joseph H. Briggs. At that time A. J. Crawford was president, and Andrew Grimes, secretary, the capital stock of the company being $25,000. It was the intent and purpose of these gentlemen to build and operate a telephone exchange in the city of Terre Haute in competition with the Central Union Telephone Company.

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Accordingly, late in the year 1899, Henry A. Coit, of St. Louis, Missouri, who was a practical telephone man, and who had had considerable experience in organizing, building and operating telephone exchanges, having been instrumental in equipping some eight or nine plants, came to Terre Haute with a view of taking up the proposition. He devoted his entire attention to this work and in March, 1900, the company was again reorganized, its capital stock being increased to $150,000, and considerable new capital invested in the enterprise, sufficient to guarantee carrying it to its completion.

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A great deal of the materials the company is using in the installation of its plant, including cables, wires, insulators, cross-arms, etc., was purchased from the Rumsey & Sikemeier Company, of St. Louis. The company has adopted a new thing in the way of cross-arms and insulators, it being the first large company to adopt what is known as the American insulator, manufactured by the Wagner Glass Company, of Anderson, Indiana. Instead of using a pin with the insulator screwed on it, as is customary, the insulator goes into the cross-arm parallel to the ground and the wires are strung thru it, making a much neater and at the same time more solid piece of work.

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