In about 1950 or 1951 The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, had one of the manual units. I seem to recall the telephone number was WJ 5-9794 (it's been a long time ago; that may not be the exact number but it was in that format--WJ N-NNNN.) This was for use by reporters on assigment who need the ability to call in from the location of a news story directly into the newspaper. The car with the phone was assigned to a reporter who needed it.
I remember one night when I was covering an escaped leopard from the Oklahoma City Zoo and reported in various reports and rumors. And sometimes the desk would get reports and rumors, too, and ask me to call some source and check them out, as well as talk to the police and deputies that were also out on the hunt in the same area I was.
Very interesting assignment. This went on for two and three days, and many citizens were out on their own (including at night) searching for the escaped beast. My observation that there was a lot more hazard from the volunteers out blundering around with their firearms in what were then rural areas of Oklahoma County and into adjoining counties than from the leopard, but in fact there were no injuries from the posses.
It was a very useful newsgathering tool, and very unusual in those days. The Associated Press reporter that was out on the hunt, too, borrowed my phone once or twice to check out a report he had heard of.
An operator at the long distance board was assigned to handle calls from these phones (I don't think there were enough of these phones for that to be full-time assignment).
Interestingly, the city desk had a toll terminal (L.D. 419, as I recall) that terminated on a desk right behind the city editor, not just for the mobile phone traffic but for various callers who had been given the number for direct connection to the city desk. (It was not used for rewrite, just for administrative purposes, since there was no provision for a rewrite man to get on the line. For that, you needed to call L.D. 343 which reached several toll terminals that had appearances on the mewspaper's PBX.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com
***** Moderator's Note *****Wes, please tell us what "Toll terminal" means in this context: were they dedicated lines to a toll operator, or something else? TIA.
Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
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