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Bruceton Mayor Joe Shouse tests the first
Stromberg-Carlson XY switch in Tennessee on March 20,
1953. Others pictured left to right, are L.T. Stovall,
District Manager, Southern Bell; Clyde Thomas, Southern
Bell; C.E. Cooper, Stromberg-Carlson Co.; Ralph Thorne,
owner and manager, Bruceton Telephone Company; and C.E.
Fogg, Stromberg-Carlson Company. The telephone equipment
pictured is from 1953.
By Ernie Smothers
smothers@mckeniebanner.com |
 Relaxing in their comfortable and inviting home
located on North Carroll Street in Bruceton, Ralph and
Evelyn Thorne bask in the afterglow of lives well lived.
Retired since 1972, the former owners of Bruceton
Telephone Company--and proud parents of ten
children--celebrated 68 years of wedded bliss on
February 20.
Though encumbered by poor health, Ralph's mental prowess
is undeniable. Quick-witted and precise in detail, his
speech befits a person who has accomplished much.
Deservedly, the same attributes apply to Evelyn.
Leaning forward, Ralph says, "The world has really
changed in the last hundred years. So much has happened
since the Wright Brothers flew that first plane at Kitty
Hawk in 1903. Our generation has witnessed many
incredible leaps in technological advancement."
It can be argued that Thorne's introduction of
communications technology to Bruceton and the
surrounding region constituted one of those "leaps".
Ralph Thorne was born in Craighead County, Arkansas, on
September 29, 1914. Blessed from the onset with an
entrepreneurial spirit, Ralph began his career at the
age of six.
Pictured are just a few of the many old
telephone models in the Thornes’ collection.
"My first job consisted of leading a blind black man
through the streets of Little Rock as he sold brooms. He
paid me a dollar a week, which was a pretty good wage,"
he says, smiling.
Relocating with his family to North Little Rock at age
nine, Ralph immediately pursued new work opportunities.
His first job in North Little Rock, a bicycle newspaper
route, earned him an average of 10 to 15 cents a day.
Motivated, Ralph sought additional employ, working as a
golf caddy at a local course. He recalls, "For nine
holes of caddying, I would make 40 cents; 18 holes paid
75 cents. That wasn't bad money for back then,
considering that 50 cents would buy a whole bushel of
potatoes."
Looking at Evelyn, he remembers having lived two doors
down from her in Little Rock, but completely losing
touch with her after his family moved.
Fate, it seems--or perhaps cupid--had plans for the two.
He recalls, "Evelyn had a relative who lived nearby that
was a dispatcher for the railroad, and we would visit
when she came by to see him. That's how we got back
together. We have been together ever since."
The couple married in North Little Rock in 1938.
Professional Career.
Ralph's telephone career began when he was hired by
Southwestern Bell in 1934. During his a ten-year
employment with the company, he performed various tasks
involving construction, cable splicing, and
installation-repair.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
After a three-year stint in the grocery business,
Thorne was hired in 1947 by Allied Telephone Company, an
independent company located in Sheridan, Arkansas, 30
miles south of Little Rock. While in their employ,
Thorne was responsible for total oversight of the
company's operation.
In early 1950, Thorne read an advertisement announcing
that the Bruceton Telephone Company was for sale.
Intrigued, he traveled to Tennessee to investigate.
Thorne recounts being quite impressed with the town's
appearance: "The houses were freshly painted and the
yards were well maintained--no slum areas. Back then,
Bruceton was a big railroad town. People took pride in
how their town looked. That impressed me to want to live
there."
He recalls that Evelyn and firstborn daughter Joyce
spent the night of their first visit to Bruceton at the
Railroad Hotel.
Upon inspecting the telephone company, Thorne purchased
the exchange for $2,600. Alerted by Bruceton banker L.
K. McMackins of former town mayor L.E Crawley's
intention to move, Thorne negotiated and purchased
Crawley's home, the same home the couple now lives in.
"The home was originally built for the town's mayor. It
was well built, with good wood construction from bottom
to top. We were lucky to get it," he says.
Thorne remembers that a man in town had been haggling
with Crawley over the purchase price of the home, hoping
he would come down on his price in his desperation to
make the sale. After buying the house, Thorne recalls
being sent word from the man that he would pay $1,000
more than he had paid Crawley for it. Thorne said no.
Beginning almost immediately, Thorne shouldered the
arduous task of transporting supplies each week from
North Little Rock to Bruceton.
Taking Stock.
It didn't take long for Thorne to realize that his newly
purchased business was not as organized nor profit
producing as advertised.
"I was told that the exchange was in pretty good shape
before buying it, but found out that that was not the
case," he says. Taking stock of the business' equipment,
communication lines, and company accounting records, the
couple realized that a complete reorganization was
needed. "We didn't have a payroll the entire first year
of operation," he recalls. Undaunted, the Thornes
pressed forward.
From the business office located inside the family home,
Evelyn's inspection of the former exchange owners'
accounting records revealed marked inconsistency.
She explains, "Mr. Crawley would charge one dollar for a
service to one person and three dollars to the next
person for the same service. The billings were spread
out over three month periods. Very disorganized. We had
to straighten it all out."
Evelyn says that in addition to the accounting dilemma,
the company faced the task of acquiring address listings
for the construction of a telephone directory.
"The Post Office would only give us five address
listings at a time, and it was going to take way too
long," she explains. "We hired a young newlywed girl
from the community named Clara King to help us put the
directory together. Our address system was simple but
effective--one side of the road was assigned even
numbers while the other side of the road was assigned
odd numbers." Smiling, she added, "Once we finished the
directory, the post office ended up using it too. You
just have to do as you can."
As Evelyn worked on the business records, Ralph began
planning upgrades to the exchange's magneto-driven
transmission system. Housed atop the bank downtown, the
building was also home to the Bruceton Masonic Lodge and
R.T. Keeton's medical clinic.
The exchange, providing mainly in-town service, received
limited incoming lines from rural communities nearby.
"The community of Vale (approximately eight miles north
of town) had a privately owned phone line, that hung
from trees and whatever else, that stretched to
Bruceton," he says. "Hollow Rock had two lines coming
in. There was also a line going towards Huntingdon that
serviced six businesses along its route. Buena Vista had
nothing."
Thorne recalled being approached by "big-boy" Eason, a
black town resident, who requested that telephone
service be provided to five black families that lived on
the far side of the railroad yard.
He recounts, "Eason told me that Crawley wouldn't allow
black people to have phones when he ran the exchange. I
told him that I would see if I could find a way to do
so."
The problem, Thorne recalls, was that the railroad
specified phone lines must maintain 18 feet of clearance
above their rail lines. Eason suggested that a six-foot
culvert running beneath the rail yard might provide an
alternative transmission path. After Thorne received
permission to utilize the culvert from the railroad,
Eason assembled a group of men who cleared the trees and
vegetation from around the area. Honoring his word,
Thorne ran three lines under the yard, connecting the
families to the exchange. He didn't stop there. "I ran
the line out to 20 black families living in a community
on a hill above the rail-line between Bruceton and
Hollow Rock," he says.
Another railroad-related obstacle to the company
involved the roundhouse. In full operation at the time,
smoke vented from locomotives idling inside the
structure caused nearby transmission lines to stick
together. Thorne solved that problem by enlisting
company employee Robert Joyner with the job of
separating the lines each day with a cane fishing pole.
Surviving the Storm.
On Saturday night, March 21, 1952, a violent tornado
delivered a pin-point strike to the heart of Bruceton's
downtown area, destroying the movie theatre before
crossing the street and obliterating Thorne's
communications office.
The Bruceton-Hollow Rock telephone office
after being destroyed by a tornado on March 21, 1952.
According to an excerpt taken from the book "Telephones
for Tennessee", then Humphreys County telephone manager
Bernard Arnold was quoted as stating, "My future wife
and I had gone into Bruceton to see a late movie. It was
Saturday night, and the storm hit about 10:30 or 11,
only thirty minutes after the end of the movie. Had it
been a double feature, we wouldn't be here to tell the
tale. I went back to Bruceton the next day to see what
happened. The central office was completely gone. They
found the switchboard some distance away in an old
tree."
The Thornes, asleep in their home, were awakened by
their startled night switchboard operator and notified
of the destruction. Ralph recalls, "We didn't hear the
tornado. It tore up homes just down the road from us,
but we never heard it."
Starting over.
Faced with a setback that would have dissuaded less
determined individuals, the Thornes assessed the
situation, weighed their options, and once again pressed
on.
Deciding against seeking a loan from the Rural
Electrical Administration, Thorne requested and received
an $80,000 loan from telephone products company
Stromberg-Carlson to purchase a new XY switching machine
and build a new central office. Stromberg-Carlson rushed
through Thorne's order for the switch, installing it in
the new office on March 20, 1953. The new switch
transformed the Bruceton Telephone Company into a
dial-up operation, one of the first in West Tennessee.
"Stromberg-Carlson provided 650 dial phones with the
purchase. We had them stacked from floor to ceiling in
the house. We started gaining customers quickly," notes
Thorne.
Purchasing new phone poles from American Creosote in
Jackson, Bruceton Telephone rapidly extended their lines
as far as their franchise limits would allow. The
company stretched lines north to the Henry County line,
west to the dividing point at Rosser, past Buena Vista
to the south, and eastward into a small section of
Benton County.
"Dr. R.T. Keeton worked it out so that we could extend
our service so that H.I.S. employees living over there
could call home from Bruceton," he says.
Evelyn recalls that her illness during her pregnancy
with son Ken contributed to the hiring of the company's
first non-family employee.
"I was in awful shape and almost died," she says. "We
realized that we had to hire some folks to help us in
the office during that time."
The Thorne's hired Lula Mae Blankenship to handle the
bookkeeping chores. She had worked at the co-op in
Lexington for seven years and was a good typist. She had
been working at the school as a cook but was having
trouble with her knees. She worked out wonderfully.
Evelyn also hired Judy Hurt. She remembers, "Judy was
shy back then, and we had to push her into taking the
job. She had gone to a business school in Nashville, but
hadn't applied for any jobs at the time. She did a good
job for us. She grew out of her shyness eventually."
Retaining smart and capable employees and
administrators, the Thorne's communication company grew
quickly, serving 1,300 customers and evolving into a
highly successful and financially solvent enterprise.
In 1972, the couple retired, selling their company via a
stock swap with Continental Telephone Company. Once
purchased, the Bruceton Telephone Company was merged
into the Tennessee Telephone franchise.
Testifies to what can be accomplished by hard work and
relentless perseverance of will, Evelyn concludes,
looking at Ralph, "We were criticized at times by people
regarding the success we achieved, but we just had to
tighten our belts and pull our shoestrings up."
"We were blessed," Ralph adds.
The Thornes’ story testifies to what can be accomplished
by hard work and relentless perseverance of will.
Arguably, Thorne's facilitation of telephone service
from his company’s exchange in downtown Bruceton to
surrounding rural communities was as beneficial as the
first manned plane flight; allowing communication
between friends and loved ones across once
insurmountable divides. |
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