By Jonita Mullins
A 16-year-old Cherokee named Ed Hicks saw the telephone demonstrated at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1882. He was fascinated with this talking instrument invented by Alexander Bell. Hicks began to study everything he could find on it. He was convinced that he could bring it to the Cherokee Nation.
To be able to run a telephone line from Tahlequah to Muskogee, Hicks needed financial backing and the permission of the Cherokee National Council. He was able to convince a number of men to invest in his scheme, including J.B. Stapler of Tahlequah and C.W. Turner of Muskogee.
In the summer of 1886, Hicks began the work of stringing the telephone line with two African-American workers, two wagons for the equipment and a team of mules. Using live trees to attach the wire, they spent the summer at the arduous task of stringing the copper line from Tahlequah to Fort Gibson and then on to Muskogee. They worked without the benefit of surveying equipment and had to rely on dead reckoning to keep working in the right direction. They reached Fort Gibson on Aug. 6, and the first call between two towns in Indian Territory was made.
It took several more days for Hicks to get the wire through thick river cane and then across the Arkansas River. The wire ended at the Turner Hardware Store in downtown Muskogee where an operator would take phone messages for everyone in town. There wasn’t even a switchboard at that time, for one wasn’t needed. There was only one line coming into the one phone in Muskogee.
The telephone at first was a fun novelty, but most folks couldn’t imagine having a need for one in their home. For its first years, the telephone was used primarily for government business between the Cherokee National Council and the Union Agency in Muskogee. No doubt, the existence of a phone line also assisted the work of the Dawes Commission when it was headquartered in Muskogee.
By 1900, Albert Z. English was operating a telephone exchange in Muskogee and lines were being expanded throughout the Creek Nation. English completed a line to the Creek Nation capital of Okmulgee in the spring of 1901. He personally carried the first telephone to Okmulgee to test the line with a call placed back to Muskogee.
English was one of Muskogee’s most prominent businessmen at the turn of the last century. The son-in-law of F.B. Severs, English had a hand in numerous enterprises in Muskogee including insurance, real estate and banking. He was arguably one of the wealthiest men of Indian Territory when he built a block of offices at the northwest corner of Main and Broadway which was called the English Block.
From the switchboard in the English Block a network of telephone lines developed. English helped communication grow in Indian Territory, and the novelty of the telephone soon became a necessity.
Reach Jonita Mullins at jonita@netscape.com.
