Rocksprings Telephone Company

Local businessman Street Gilmer and D. H. Comparette of Kerrville built a long distance telephone line from Rocksprings to Kerrville in 1898 and installed the town's first telephone in Newton & Smart's store. The phone was later moved to Gilmer's Drug Store, beginning the Rocksprings Telephone Company. In the early 20th century, customers used crank-handled magneto wall phones to reach operators, and as many as seventeen parties shared each line. A 1927 tornado damaged many Rocksprings lines and devastated the town, and employee Foster Owens left his home in unstable weather to clear the toll lines by hand and call Kerrville for assistance. After the tornado, the company built a new rock building. Major changes came in the 1950s as Street Gilmer died in February 1951 and his son Claud, a former state legislator and speaker of the House, became company president. In 1952 the Rocksprings exchange purchased the Nueces Canyon Telephone Company, and in 1953 Claud Gilmer's son became general manager. Over the next decade, the company acquired the Utopia, D'Hanis, and Vinegarroon exchanges, and by 1958 every exchange in the company had been converted to the dial system. In 1983 the Rocksprings and Nueces Canyon Telephone Company became the Southwest Texas Telephone Company, and one hundred years after the company's inception it remained a family business with two of Street Gilmer's grandchildren and five great-grandchildren serving on the board of directors.

Rocksprings, Texas · United States