Before the words “texting,” “Twitter” or “touch screen” were part of the common vocabulary, people opened up the phone book and spun rotary dials on telephones connected to the wall to call one another.
The Telephone Museum of New Mexico is a testament to these old days of telephones. The museum, at Fourth Street and Central Avenue, is home to hundreds of telephones from 1880 to 1984.
Phones made of wood and brass line the walls, and every room is filled with telephone knickknacks — from pens with a metal ball designed to dial a rotary phone, to an early video phone, to 100-year-old New Mexico telephone books. A smiling, red-cheeked mannequin dangles from a two-story indoor telephone pole, his plastic hands frozen midaction.
Susie Turner, the museum’s tour guide and publicist, said all the telephones were used in New Mexico at some point.
“I always tell people we live in one of the highest tech states west of the Mississippi except for California, so don’t think we’re hicks,” Turner said. “We have a lot to do with what made New Mexico a state and the history behind the space program.”
Both Turner and the Chair of the board of directors Gigi Galassini have decades of experience working with Mountain Bell, the Albuquerque branch of Bell Systems that later changed over to many other owners.
Both began work when they graduated from high school, and Galassini said she stayed in the telephone business for 38 years.
Most of the volunteers and board members are old enough to have worked with the equipment that is now behind glass cases. And Turner still relies on dial-up Internet. Featured telephones include the “thumper,” the first-ever commercial phone model.
Turner said the wooden telephone made a knocking noise when it rang, earning it its nickname. She said the Princess Phone, available in pastel colors, was popular in the late 1950s.
“That was what every teenage girl wanted,” Turner said. “It’s lovely, it’s little, it’s light. It was so light that when you tried to dial it, it would go right off the table.”
In one interactive exhibit, museum-goers pick up the handset of a turquoise rotary phone and dial a number. Elvis music plays once they’ve completed the task. Turner said young children don’t know how to dial a rotary phone, so she teaches them.
“It doesn’t have a button; they have no idea what to do with it,” she said. “And they do not know what a handset is. We’ve had them in here and they just try to pick up the whole phone.”
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Galassini said it’s not just the kids who have never used these phones.
“We have teachers who are young enough today, some of them have never seen a rotary telephone,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?”
The museum opened its doors to the public in 1997 and is housed in a telephone building built in 1902, one of the oldest buildings in downtown Albuquerque. It is funded by donations and volunteer work, and Turner said it took 33,000 hours of volunteer service to prepare the museum for opening.
Turner said the museum receives visitors from around the world, and some visit for guidance as they build their own telephone museums. One man took it even further.
“We had one fellow who came over and took pictures of the museum, and then he put it on the Internet as his own museum,” she said. “Maybe he’s got a lot of business for us that way; I don’t know.”
Charlie Calhoun, a museum visitor from Olympia, Wash., said he liked the display of gifts given to telephone workers of bygone eras for jobs well done.
“There are just fun little things I’ve noticed as I’ve walked around, like there’s this button that says something like, ‘Go to work, don’t go to heaven,’” he said. “I’m kind of geeky, so it’s great for geeky people, but also people who are into quirky, historical stuff.”
A small room in the basement is stacked from floor to ceiling with New Mexico telephone books, the oldest of which is from Estancia and was issued in 1918. Turner said the museum houses every telephone book from every town in New Mexico and holds the largest collection of New Mexico telephone books, larger even than that of the state government.
The most modern phone in the museum is at the front desk, where the receptionist answers calls with more modern technology.
Turner said she has no problems using modern communication technology, such as Skype.
“I think it’s fine. I think it’s good to keep in contact that way,” she said. “You have to forgive me because I don’t like webcams, so I don’t like that part of Skype. But the talking on the phone part, I think is great.”
Although the museum always gets positive feedback from kids, Galassini said it is hard to get younger generations to help out and continue the legacy after she steps down.
“Someday somebody will want (the museum), I don’t want it to go down the tubes,” she said. “I can die here, I guess, if it had to be. But it’s very important to me to make sure that what we have built will continue forever.”
Telephone Museum of New Mexico
110 Fourth Street N.W.
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Monday,Wednesday, Friday
$2 general admission
