The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum is located in Leslie, Georgia. They boast the largest collection of antique telephones and telephone memorabilia in the world. The museum sits inside an old cotton warehouse that dates back to the 1920s. It’s also closely located to the Citizens Telephone Company, one of the only independent phone companies left in the country.
Museum visitors take an hour long tour through the building, led by a trained guide. These tours take place every twenty minutes during business operators, provided that patrons are waiting. At least 1,500 telephones are on display inside the museum, including replicas of the same phone used by Alexander Graham Bell. They also have the McKinley telephone, which is an exact replica of the phone used to call and announce the death of President McKinley. The museum also displays a number of novelty phones from the 1950s-1980s.
The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum is home to other exhibits as well. The Indian Room has a full mural and a replica of an old Creek Indian village. Another room houses a large collection of insulators and paperweights used by Bell companies in the past. The Presidential Switchboard is the same one used by Jimmy Carter during his campaign in the 1970s.
The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum is located at 135 North Bailey Avenue in Leslie, Georgia. It is open Monday through Friday from 9 am to 3:30 pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children, and $4 for seniors. They offer discounted rates for larger groups. Those who plan to visit the telephone museum may want to learn more about the history and invention of the phone. Early Telephone History offers a long and in depth history of the phone, beginning with work done in the 1700s. At Telephone History Pages visitors get the chance to see images of older phones and how the invention has changed over the years. Antique Telephone History showcases a different type of phone each month, with information on how that phone was created. The History of the Telephone details the two men who each raced to create the first working telephone and what it meant to society as a whole. The telephone entry at Wikipedia discusses this race as well, but it also looks at other inventors and how their work helped create the phone. At Telephone History users can read about the original development of the phone, the early work, and modern developments. Even AT&T offers an inside look at how their company helped to found the telephone. The Great Idea Finder lists an easy to use timeline that details the major events in the history of the telephone. Vintage Phone and Antique Telephones also list dozens of different antique phones, including photographs. At PHONECO users can see photographs of antique and vintage telephones through the ages.