Abstract
The Southern Nevada Telephone Company Collection documents the history of the company from 1957 to 1966. The collection includes photographs and internal publications that illustrate the company's growth and role in Las Vegas' history. It also contains a photocopy of A History of the Southern Nevada Telephone Company, 1907-1961.
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Date
Extent
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Scope and Contents Note
The Southern Nevada Telephone Company Collection includes records collected by Janet Savalli on the Southern Nevada Telephone Company from 1957 to 1966. Materials include a photocopy of A History of the Southern Nevada Telephone Company, 1907-1961, black and white photographs of telephone operators and switchboards, color photocopies of photographs, telephone directories, and several issues of the international publication Circuit Chatter. Collection also includes digital copies of these materials.
Access Note
The collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
The collection is organized with the history of the company first, followed by photographs, then internal ephemera, and a disc of the records.
Biographical / Historical Note
The Southern Nevada Telephone Company traces its roots to the Las Vegas Trading Company, which was founded in 1907 when C.P. Squires needed a magneto telephone line from a wholesale feed company to his ranch. The company was renamed the Consolidated Power and Telephone Company after a refinancing in 1909. The location of the new company was a rented building on First Street. In 1923 when it reached 200 subscribers, the company expanded its facilities and moved its offices to 109 South Second Street. In 1931 the Big Six Companies and the Bureau of Reclamation requested telephone service in Boulder City to meet the needs of the construction teams working on the Boulder Dam. In 1952 the Atomic Energy Commission’s development of the atomic bomb in the desert northwest of Las Vegas also added heavy loads to local telephone services. At this time Nevada’s Public Service Commission and the people of Southern Nevada pressured the telephone company to improve the limited services for the general public.
The continued growth of Las Vegas required continued expansion of telephone services, and to meet this need, the Southern Nevada Telephone Company became part of the newly formed Nevada Telephone Association. By July 1960, 50,000 telephones had been installed in Las Vegas. In 1961 the Southern Nevada Telephone Company and the Central Telephone Company of Lincoln, Nebraska, which was a part of the Central Telephone and Utilities Corporation, merged. The Southern Nevada Telephone Company began operating as Central Telephone Company’s Southern Nevada Division. The telephone company in Southern Nevada then began modernizing its services to provide Las Vegas citizens with modern switching systems and better service for the whole Valley.
For further historical background, see Dodrill, Ed. 1976. Development of Telephone Service in Southern Nevada. Las Vegas: Central Telephone Company, Southern Nevada Division.
Preferred Citation
Southern Nevada Telephone Company Collection, 1957-1966. MS-00601. Special Collections, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. UNLV Libraries, Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated in 2013 by Janet Savalli; accession number 2013-024.
Processing Note
In 2014, as part of a legacy finding aid conversion project, Lindsay Oden revised and enhanced the collection description to bring it into compliance with current professional standards. Subsequently Lindsay Oden entered the data into ArchivesSpace.