Conroe Telephone Exchange
Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A long distance telephone line ran from Houston to Gilbert's Drug Store in Conroe before Mr. Gilbert and Albert Madeley began a local telephone exchange in the store in 1899. Soon after, George Madeley purchased the exchange, naming it Conroe Communication Company. He operated the company from the Madeley Building on this site. In 1929 George Madeley sold the company to the owners of the Lufkin Telephone Exchange. At that time the Conroe exchange consisted of a six-position switchboard with two toll operators, one rural operator and three local operators. By the late 1940s the office was too small for the outdated equipment it housed. In 1954 a dial system was installed in a new exchange building. The system was reorganized into the Lufkin-Conroe Telephone Exchange, Inc., in 1985. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Conroe's telephone service began in 1899 inside Gilbert's Drug Store, where a local exchange grew out of a long-distance line running up from Houston. George Madeley soon bought the operation and ran it from his building on this site, and by the late 1920s it had grown into a busy switchboard staffed by toll, rural, and local operators. A dial system arrived in 1954, carrying the small-town exchange into the modern era.
Why it matters
The story captures how a new technology spread from a drugstore counter into everyday life, knitting isolated Texas towns into the national communications network.
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Related people
- · George Madeley
- · Albert Madeley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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