Volume 8 , Issue 31

Welcome To Perry, Oklahoma

"Most of the story mentioned in that Welcome to Perry, Oklahoma has been committed to my memory and I'm known to quote much of it to folks who come into my antique mall. I'm sure that you heard at least part of it to you. I probably pointed to where 'Hell's Half Acre' was (across the street from my shop). There are some updates that you may not know about though.
      Henry Bellmon's wife Shirley died several years ago and he has since remarried. Also the railroad station at Wharton was originally called Mendota (I don't know why the name was changed). Another bit of history not mentioned in that article was the fact that because the railroad wanted their station at Wharton to be recognized as the county seat, they refused for a long time to stop any trains at Perry so two of the country's first telephones (in the early 1890's) were installed between Howendobler's Drug Store on "C" street and the railroad station at Wharton so they could ring up the station to see if any freight or mail had come in, and then they could send a wagon down to bring it into town. A few months later they extended the phone lines to the new agricultural and mechanical school (Oklahoma A & M now known as OSU) building and also to a drug store in Pawnee. Then to make it more complete they ran lines to Enid and to the territorial capitol at Guthrie. Originally they called the company the Arkansas Valley Telephone Company but later changed it to the Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph Company and finally called it the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (the original headquarters of SWBell was on the north side of the Perry Courthouse square but was later moved to offices above the First National Bank). Later the company headquarters was moved to St. Louis, Mo. and then to OKC before moving to Texas where it is located now.
      You probably don't remember our neighbors there in Britton, Oklahoma (the Howard Johnston family lived next door west of Kendrick Grocery). Howard Johnston had created the Britton Telephone Exchange and later merged it into SWBell and went to work for them as a line chief. Those crank-type phones that we kids had strung all over the neighborhood (from Steve and Stan Johnston's room to Sandra Sherman at Sherman Funeral Home down the street, and across Britton Road to Larry Owens (at his mom's beauty shop) and Vernon Banks house (his dad was co-owner of City Spring Works down by the Mummer's Theatre in OKC) and of course the switchboard was operated by Steve Johnston in his and Stanley's bedroom. Those phones and that switchboard were from the original Britton Telephone Exchange but I didn't know that until many years later. I did remember however that Howard Johnston had one of the very first transistorized hearing aids in existence. The Bell Telephone laboratories had invented the transistor and were experimenting with "how to use the it". Mr. Johnston had become quite hard-of-hearing and that hearing aid was a marvel of the age (and a forerunner of things to come). I too can remember some history, as I've lived some of it!" -- Roy
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