Telephone Company Merger. Chateaugay Record and Franklin County Democrat 
A detailed report on the 1917 annual meeting of the Mountain Home Telephone Company, Plattsburgh Sentinel, February 13, 1917 The Mountain Home Telephone Company was formed from the consolidation of the Adirondack Home Telephone Company, the New York Telephone Company, the Clinton Telephone Company and the Bell and Independent Telephone Companies in 1912. Mountain Home was taken over by the Northern New York Telephone Company some time after 1921, which in turn was taken over by the New York Telephone Company in 1922. 1
W. C. Leonard was on the board of directors in 1914. 2
In April of 1915, E. A. Stonaker [sic], Superintendent of Traffic, Mountain Home Telephone Company, published an article in The Telephone Review titled "The Winter Carnival and the Telephone at Saranac Lake" which included the following history:
The first telephone service of any kind in Saranac Lake was given by a Mr. F. M. Bull, who established a small switchboard in his pharmacy and had a line running out to Bloomingdale and Rainbow Lake, localities a few miles distant. The call for central was "Hello, Bull." In 1893, Mr. Bull died and Mr. F. M. Jackson, then local manager of the Postal Telegraph Company, and Mr. Joseph Merkel, took over the telephone business. The number of subscribers, then about ten, was ultimately increased to about thirty.
In 1897 the business men of the town got together and formed the Franklin Telephone & Telegraph Co., of which Mr. F. E. Kendall was the first president. Mr. Alfred Donaldson was the next president, and during his term of office he was greatly aided by suggestions from Mr. J. C. Lynch, now General Superintendent of Traffic of the Bell Telephone Company, of Pennsylvania, and at that time Traffic Engineer of the New York Telephone Company.
In 1903 the Hudson River Telephone Company bought control of the Franklin Company, and in 1909 control passed to the New York Telephone Company. Service up to this time had been given from magneto boards of various types, but in the winter of 1909-10 the Number 10 Western Electric common battery board was cut into service.
In the meantime, competition in the telephone business had sprung up in Saranac Lake. A local organization, known as the Mountain Home Telephone Company, was formed in 1906 and started to give service from a Dean common battery board. In 1913 the Mountain Home Telephone Company took over the competing properties in the four northern counties of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and St. Lawrence, and the properties at Saranac Lake were consolidated in the former New York Company board, an additional section being added for the purpose.
Thus is universal service being given to this community of winter enthusiasts, well named, for, as an old Adirondack guide is fond of saying, "We have only tew seasons here, y'know, winter and August." #
Courtesy of Betsy Minehan.Malone Farmer, December 6, 1922
Says the Ogdensburg Advance: "On January 1st the Mountain Home Telephone Co. will cease to exist and the Northern New York Telephone Corporation will take its pace. It will do this in name only, as all the old officials and property will go to the new company. For some time the, officers of the company have felt that the name of the company was a misnomer and for that reason the new name was selected. The January telephone directories will contain the new name. The Mountain Home Telephone company serves practically all of St. Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton counties. Its service is excellent and the employees and officials courteous. Its motto is service and upon that it has built up the present strong organization."
The switchboard of the Mountain Home Telephone Company, 1912, at 69 Main Street. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, December 1, 2007
To download the entire 1917 Mountain Home directory, click here 1917 phone 1-3.pdf (3.27 MB) and here 1917 phone 4-23.pdf (14.2 MB)
Footnotes
1. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, March 8, 1956
2. Malone Farmer, February 11, 1914, p. 1
