Lufkin Telephone Exchange

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little East Texas flavor. It started the way a lot of great things start in this part of the world: two friends, a good idea, and probably more ambition than anybody realized at the time. The year was 1898, and Dr.

Alexander Madison Denman and his friend Judge Edwin James Mantooth decided they wanted to talk to each other without walking across town. So they did what any reasonable pair of determined men would do. They strung telephone wires between their offices.

Just like that. Now, you'd think that might've been enough of an adventure for two busy professionals, but here's the thing about a good idea in a small town: everybody wants in. The system caught on so fast, so completely, that Denman and Mantooth knew they were holding something bigger than a private convenience.

They brought in a partner, Eli Wiener, and together the three of them formed the Lufkin Telephone Exchange, operating right here on this very site. Then in 1908, the Exchange contracted with the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company to bring long distance service into the picture. Long distance.

Suddenly Lufkin wasn't just talkin' to itself anymore. The company kept growing, kept reaching, acquiring telephone exchanges across a large portion of East Texas, spreading out the way telephone technology itself was spreading, one line at a time, one county at a time. By 1985, the whole enterprise had grown so substantial it was reorganized as the Lufkin-Conroe Telephone Exchange.

Two men, two offices, and a length of wire between them. That's where it all began.

What the marker says

Telephone service in Lufkin began in 1898 when Dr. Alexander Madison Denman and his friend Judge Edwin James Mantooth strung telephone wires between their offices. The system was so popular that the pair soon formed the Lufkin Telephone Exchange with partner Eli Wiener, operating from offices on this site. In 1908 they contracted with the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company to provide long distance service. The company grew as rapidly as telephone technology itself, eventually acquiring the telephone exchanges of a large portion of East Texas. In 1985 the corporation was reorganized as the Lufkin-Conroe Telephone Exchange. (1998)