This Community Memories
exhibit is the story of the
Davis Telephone Company, a
family business founded by
Joseph Davis in 1910 in
Rankin, Ontario. This exhibit
is also the story of the
importance of the development
of a communications systems
in a rural community and the
| changes that telephones
brought to the average
country family.
When the Bell Telephone
Company in Montreal decided
to sell its Eganville
exchange in 1923, Joseph
Davis' Rankin Telephone
Company seemed to be the
logical system to purchase
| the system of seventy
telephones. After Leslie
Davis took over the family
business from his father in
1926, the Rankin Telephone
Company purchased the Douglas
exchange with thirty five
phones in 1929.
To reflect the scope of
the system's operation, the
| Rankin Telephone Company
changed its name to "Davis
Telephone Company" in 1942.
In 1950, under the
supervision of Leslie's son
Sheldon, the Davis Telephone
Company was awarded contracts
from the Pine Tree defense
line to erect a cable to the
radar station at Foymount.
|