The insulators and wires upon this rather primitive pole line were for local telephone subscribers. No doubt this *was not* standard Ma Bell construction.

Rather it was of typical "Ma and Pa Telephone Company" sort of stuff seen along dusty roads that connected to the operators' switchboard...typically situated within the living room inside the proprietor's home as another fine piece of furniture. This was a somewhat commonplace practice in the earliest days of rural telephone service for those who created the earliest "telephone companies". These progressive individuals/companies sometimes utilized whatever line gear was available within the surplus markets of the time as well as "whatever was lying around" in good condition to effectively get the local communications clearly through.

This kind of retained-recycling often resulted with all sorts of varied (albeit with some uncommon/rare) insulators that were continued in-service for decades until lucky insulator collectors started to find them in the 1960s and 1970s.