Current Gallery: openwire ( piece)
The backbone of U. S. telecommunications between 1880 and the mid-1950s, was openwire communications technology used by nearly all operating companies throughout the nation to link farm to town and town to city. The hayday of the crossarm throughout the countryside prospered for over 50 years and then suddenly disappeared by the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, very little of that civilian telecom heritage remains, except in very isolated areas. Transportation companies namely: the railroads, are dismantling their communications and signal facilities at a breakneck pace, anticipating that all railway openwire will be linewrecked by 2020. The pole and crossarm icon has always conjured up what we fondly recall as part of the "countryside furniture." Today, the landscape seems more barren; railroads and highways . . . far more isolated and foresaken without their former communications partners in stride with the parallel ribbons of pavement or iron rail. We present some historical photos of this incredible epoch which we recall the grand period which was . . . openwire communications.
The backbone of U. S. telecommunications between 1880 and the mid-1950s, was openwire communications technology used by nearly all operating companies throughout the nation to link farm to town and town to city. The hayday of the crossarm throughout the countryside prospered for over 50 years and then suddenly disappeared by the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, very little of that civilian telecom heritage remains, except in very isolated areas. Transportation companies namely: the railroads, are dismantling their communications and signal facilities at a breakneck pace, anticipating that all railway openwire will be linewrecked by 2020. The pole and crossarm icon has always conjured up what we fondly recall as part of the "countryside furniture." Today, the landscape seems more barren; railroads and highways . . . far more isolated and foresaken without their former communications partners in stride with the parallel ribbons of pavement or iron rail. We present some historical photos of this incredible epoch which we recall the grand period which was . . . openwire communications.