Three of the telephone operators during the last year of the switchboard system at the phone company office in Marlinton. Pictured left to right are Jean McKenney, Saundra Kershner Gilmore and Wynona Rogers. The Pocahontas Telephone Company began in 1920. The building where this picture was taken was built at the corner of Third Avenue and Ninth Street in 1948. Pocahontas Telephone was sold to Telephone Utilities of West Virginia in 1959 due to expanded demand for phone service created by the location of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank. Under the direction of Mr. Murrill Colburn (of the parent company, Telephone Utilities of Pennsylvania) the county-wide dial system went into operation at 6:00 a.m. on June 19, 1961. Photo Courtesy of Jean McKenney, ID: PHP000709
Access the “Preserving Pocahontas” Digital Library at www.pocahontaspreservation.org or www.preservingpocahontas.org If you have photographs or documents to be scanned for the county Historical Archive Project contact Preservation Officer B. J. Gudmundsson at 304-799-3989 or email info@pocahontaspreservation.org Prints of photographs from the archives are available.
