Note the poletop pin that carried an insulator as well as a wire. This probably was a ground wire for lightning protection.

This practice is seen along a lot of images of AT&T toll lines of the teens and before. Lightning strikes upon poletop wire such as this will induce a lot of electricity upon all of the other wires, quickly disappating to ground upon the route, very especially if the insulators and poles were wet from the rain. As such, pole top ground wires are not seen among AT&T and other openwire comms openwire after the teens owing to the fact that lightning discharges gradually bleed off the energy along any route without harm.

However damage occurs when lightning strikes near any equipment that is inadequate for protecting. Insulators never break unless there are repeated direct hits upon them (this includes power line porcelain) and these (the worst) strokes can be as many as 40 hits within one-thousand of a second. Otherwise insulators survive well upon such strikes. A direct hit upon any insulator that is dry and then thermally-shocked (as insulator manufacturers have always referred to this description) by consequent rain on a red-hot insulator surface (as well as high stresses upon multipart porcelain cement joints). Thus Pyrex and well-designed/engineered electric utility insulators including porcelain have enjoyed long very lives ....