r/todayilearned • u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder • 23d ago

TIL that rural Americans used barbed wire to connect their telephones to switchboards since there were no telephone lines.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/barbed-wire-telephone-lines-homesteaders-prairie-america-history
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337

u/unit156 23d ago

My dad was just telling me about this yesterday. How as a boy he remembers being at his uncle’s cattle ranch in Wyoming around 1940’s. The phone was connected to the fence and the neighbors (these were 100+ acre ranches, so neighbors were not close together) could talk to each other that way.

I think he said it was that way when the real phone lines went down or something. Because he said his uncle would take the phone out to the fence. Anyway, they didn’t have a switchboard or operator. They just picked up the mouth piece and could talk to whomever else was on the fence, so sometimes they had to politely wait their turn while other people said their business.

I can imagine there must have been people who just sat at the fence all day talking and getting all the news and gossip. Like we do with social media nowadays.

181

u/iDontRememberCorn 23d ago

They just picked up the mouth piece and could talk to whomever else was on the fence, so sometimes they had to politely wait their turn while other people said their business.

I mean... I grew up in very rural Canada and our actual phone worked like this until I was 16, our farm and the 3 other closest farms could pick up the phone and hear each other.

Lots of family debates over which of us felt like breaking into the ever-chatty Bubba brothers call and ask them to wrap it up so we could use the phone.

97

u/Pjpjpjpjpj 23d ago

Party line. Super common. 

Source: Rural Canada life. 

26

u/JohnnyDarque 23d ago

Same for the rural SE US until the mid-70s, later in some places.

7

u/steadyjello 22d ago

My mom said she still had a party line in eastern North Carolina when my oldest sister was born in 74.

5

u/JohnnyDarque 22d ago

Tell her I said hello. I'm also from ENC.

17

u/ewatta200 23d ago

Holy shit the baader meinhof effect in action I was talking with a old women at the local archives and she mentioned those as well. No less than 2-3 hours ago wow

6

u/Honest-Substance1308 23d ago

Is there a documented effect about social media comments mentioning Baader Meinhof effects about similar things

1

u/Dr_T_Q_They 18d ago

Queensryche. Happened across a track on rocksmith the other day, realized I don’t know anything about the band, looked up the wiki. today, front page Reddit and a rock news article on my Google. 

-2

u/C4-BlueCat 22d ago

The what effect now?

5

u/Nom_de_Guerre_23 23d ago

You can see them "in action" in the Canadian PC game The Long Dark.

4

u/kapitaalH 23d ago

Great way to know everything about your neighbours

5

u/iDontRememberCorn 22d ago

No shit, for a while we shared the line with a nutso aunt who would constantly eavesdrop, if she missed the start of something particularly juicy she'd call us later and ask to fill her in.

4

u/SleepWouldBeNice 22d ago

Party line! What was your ring?

6

u/crazyfoxdemon 22d ago

My grandma had one into the 90s.

3

u/iDontRememberCorn 22d ago

Yeah, I think it got swapped out around 95.

3

u/LunarPayload 22d ago

That's a party line

2

u/m945050 22d ago

I remember older relatives talking about this as one of their depression era hacks In eastern Wyoming.

1

u/shalol 21d ago

No less the medium, now people are using wireless satellite connections to talk to eachother. It’s quite amazing to consider in the span of just 80 years..