Cut Off: No More Crank Calls -- Old-Style Telephones Replaced

Country-store owner Garry Pedrow wasn't too upset that his telephone, part of the nation's last known hand-crank party line, was being disconnected today.

``I hate to see the historical value of it leave, but as far as being in business it's hard to communicate on this line!'' Pedrow yelled into the mouthpiece yesterday during one of the last calls he made on the Depression-era system.

Pedrow's Shoup Country Store is near North Fork, Idaho, about 200 miles northeast of Boise in the rugged Salmon River canyon. He and 17 year-round neighbors depended on the magneto-operated system and switchboard operator Steve Freestone to talk to one another and the outside world.

At first, they resisted efforts to do away with the phones. But eventually they agreed the convenience of modern private-line, touch-tone service was more important.

State Public Utilities Commission President Joe Miller was to make the first call today on the new system, which required 40 miles of underground cable laid over several months.

The fate of the old system was decided a year ago when AT&T announced that computerization would force elimination of the switchboard operator. Freestone operates the switchboard from his Motel Deluxe in Salmon, about 20 miles from the canyon.

The residents along 34 miles of the canyon used the system like an intercom to talk among themselves without help, but Freestone was their link beyond the wilderness.

He placed outgoing calls and fielded incoming ones, directing calls to the right customers through a system of coded rings. Pedrow's store, for instance, was three longs.

``They're sad to see the last crank-phone system being taken out, but they're glad to get better service,'' Freestone said.

``That line's been so bad. It's a raggedy old thing. They've got it nailed to trees and mountains. Most of the time you have to yell pretty loud to talk to people down river.''

The system originally was set up by the U.S. Forest Service in 1931 and was sold to a cooperative for $1 in 1952.

In their heyday, such wall-mounted phones - consisting of a black metal mouthpiece on an arm and a receiver hung on a two-prong hook - represented the communications heart of as many as 1.2 million American farms and ranches.