Telephone switchboard
Please hold the line
As you make a call on your mobile phone today without so much as a thought for its technological marvels, consider the excitement for the people of yesteryear when they first experienced the miracle of the telephone. In Mingenew, residents were elated when, in 1910, the overland telegraph line linked this then remote region to the world. In the small nearby siding of Yandanooka, a husband and wife team had the job of operating this telephone exchange switchboard. They’d sit at the switchboard, await an incoming call then, with some deft maneuvering of plugs, direct the call to the intended recipient. The exchanges and their operators became redundant after telephone automation reached Mingenew in 1978.
