1938 St. Ignace Switchboard Takes Place in Communications Museum

Eileen Evers of the Chamber of Commerce poses with the old switchboard station on display in the office on State Street.

A 1938 manual telephone switchboard station used in St. Ignace will become part of a communications museum dedicated to old telephone equipment, said Janet Peterson of the Chamber of Commerce, which owned the switchboard before selling it in 2005 to a Washington, Georgia, man to use in his museum.

It was sold for $1,000, with proceeds going to the Chamber of Commerce.

Another St. Ignace switchboard, donated to the Chamber of Commerce by a family who found it in a St. Ignace building they had purchased, may also be sold to the museum, Mrs. Peterson said, but no purchase price has been agreed upon for that station, which is in rough condition.

The Chamber of Commerce still owns four switchboard stations, once used in the old Bell Telephone building at 6 Spring Street in St. Ignace. Two are displayed in the Chamber of

Commerce office, where they draw a considerable amount of visitor interest, Mrs. Peterson said, and two are on loan for display in the lobby of the Boardwalk Inn. Mrs. Peterson said the Chamber of Commerce board has no plans to part with the remaining four stations, which have historical value to the town. Bell Telephone's St. Ignace office was one of the last in the country to use manual switchboards, she said.

"None of them are in excellent condition," she said of the switchboards. "They had been moved a number of times and pieces were missing."

The Chamber of Commerce came into possession of the switchboards when it owned the old Bell building, which later housed the St. Ignace Public Library, and now is home to the Visitors Bureau.

Seventeen such switchboards were put into place in St. Ignace in 1938, replacing older magneto switchboards.