News – Sheridan Media
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On Tuesday, Feb 11, Mike Kuzara, who worked for many years for the Range Telephone Company, talked about some of his experiences and some of the history of telephone service in the Sheridan area.
He said that just calling the neighbors wasn’t enough for most people. This required a switch board with operators in a central location to plug in the calls between telephone. Later, the switch board became mechanized. He said that the mechanized office was a busy, noisy place.
He had several items on display including an old rotary dial telephone, and he said they had governor so that one couldn’t dial too fast and make the arms at the switchboard tangle up.
Kuzara said he first wanted to be a forest ranger, but that was interrupted when he went into the military. He said his military operation specialty was field wire technician. When he came back to Sheridan in 1959, he said Range Telephone was looking for linemen to build telephone lines. Although he didn’t at first have a safety belt, he learned to work by hooking one leg around a pole when he climbed up the pole.
At one time, the telephone lines were strung along electrical poles under the power lines.
He had some slides that showed some reasons why the telephone lines might be down.
Several years ago, the telephone companies began putting the land lines and internet lines underground, which helped to make the telephone service more dependable.
Kuzara had several interesting stories from his time working on the telephone lines. He worked throughout Northeastern Wyoming, as well as into Southern Montana. He talked about how some people put in telephones very incorrectly, and how they put telephone lines across the Powder River to ranchers there.
The program will be repeated in Dayton at the Tongue River Valley Community Center on Tuesday, Feb. 18, beginning at 10:30. Everyone is invited, and the programs are free.
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Last modified: February 13, 2025