The Midnight Switchboard Dilemma
A local telephone company threatens to start charging for after-hours calls to deter 'trivial' late-night conversations.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The W.B. & C. R. Telephone Co. has announced updated calling hours: 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. during winter months, and 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the summer. Our rates filed with the Commission call for a ten-cent charge for all calls after hours, except those for a doctor or a fire. To date, we have not enforced this charge, but we will be compelled to do so unless our patrons discontinue the practice of making trivial and unimportant calls after hours.
“We will be compelled to enforce this charge unless our patrons discontinue the practice of making trivial and unimportant calls after hours.”
Long before the internet, the party line was the social network of rural Washington. This struggle to balance civic infrastructure with personal social habits remains a foundational tension in how we treat public resources, now seen in battles over data usage and community bandwidth.
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