This series of posts will detail "smaller" telephone insulators which were found in Boone County, Iowa. The pony and exchange style insulators I will document include: early 1871 style Hemingray; next generation Hemingray; Duqusene Glass Co.; King City Glass Works and Star styles. No Brookfield telephone insulators were recovered from this part of Iowa.

This post deals with the early Hemingray CD 124.2 1871 style insulators that were found on the same telephone line as were the CD 124.3 insulators shown in an earlier post [id=630851229]. According to my father-in-law, the telephone line, that carried the CD 124.2 and CD 124.3 insulators was built by the American Bell Telephone Company around 1879 to 1880, and ran out of Boone, Iowa West to Ogden, Iowa and East toward Ames, Iowa - it paralleled a dirt wagon trail that eventually became US Route 30 in the 1920's. As most of you probably know, US Route 30 runs across the whole country from the East Coast to the West Coast.

The history of the telephone in Boone Co., as I understand it, started with the Bell invention in 1876. Western Union, who already had a telegraph exchange in Boonesboro, Iowa and around the United States, recognized that in the future they would not be able to compete with the telephone. Western Union converted all it's telegraph exchange into a "telegraph and telephone exchange". There was a big patent infringement case brought by American Bell against Western Union. American Bell Telephone Company won and eventually purchased all the Western Union telephone exchanges including the one that served Montana (re-named Boone) /Boonesboro, Iowa. The first private telephone line (1879) connected the Boonesboro office of Alonzo J. Barkley - Recorder for Boone County - with the Boone County court house.

Initially, American Bell Telephone Company built only local telephone lines - generally less than 50 miles long. In 1885, American Bell organized a subsidiary - American Telephone and Telegraph Company to build and operate long distant lines to interconnect the various regional Bell Companies. Local phone companies with a license from Bell would connect the farms and homes in Boone Co. My father-in-law said that their farm was served by the Hawkeye Telephone Company and the Eastern part of Boone County was served by the Ames and Nevada Telephone Company. They had to rent / lease their phone from Bell and had "party lines".

I was able to find only four CD 124.2 insulators in my father-in-laws 55 gallon insulator barrel. Two of these insulators had heavy damage and details of the other two are as follows:

CD-124.2 Patent / Dec.19.1871 - FD Small Script 4 - BD (No Mold Mark) - Deep Blue (Almost Hemi Blue) - Crude Milky With Significant Overpour - 63mm Wide x 88mm High [id=631541515]

CD-124.2 Patent / Dec.19.1871 - FD Medium Script 4 - BD (No Mold Mark) - Greenish Aqua / Mint Green - Crude Milky With Significant Overpour & Massive Wire Groove Bubble - 63mm Wide x 88mm High [id=631541654]

The first picture shows the front and the backs are shown in the following picture: [id=631541087]