TELEPHONE COMPANY

 After Thomas established his ranch and it was operating well, he turned to some of his other interests and began to develop them.  He is a forward-thinking man and can see the benefits of progress. The Riggs Cattle Company was spread out over a large area. The cowboys and the various members of the family didn’t see each other every day.  In order to keep the various ranches operating well it was necessary to have a system that allowed them to communicate with each other about the need for supplies or work that needed to be done on various areas of the ranches.  It was worked out that a pocket notebook would be left at the Riggs Cattle Company headquarters building.  Messages were written in the notebook telling what work needed to be done and what supplies were needed.  A reply would be written in the notebook if warranted (We call it “Cowboy Texting”). 

Some examples of the notebook:    

Are you going to work ZZ tomorrow  I think we are more liable to be losing calves at ZZ and Seinega than ever before.

Tom Stafford is threatening to quit.     I think you are being too hard on him       If he goes so will the cook

Apples for Nettie        2 cans Prince Albert   

The telephone was new to the Territory of Arizona. TJ understood that a phone system in the Riggs neighborhood would make communications so much better so he installed phone lines between ranches and phones in each ranch house.  When the phones were first installed they just connected the various ranches but were not tied in to the outside world.  The phone hung on the wall and had a handle on the side that would make a connection with the phone line as it was turned.  Because everyone was on the same phone line, there was an interesting system set up so they would know which ranch was being called.  It was a series of rings such as one long ring was for Home Ranch and two short rings was for Star Ranch, etc.

After TJ connected all of the ranches to each other with phone lines, he worked to have telephone lines connecting the ranches from the Chiricahua’s to Dos Cabezas, and then extended the line to Willcox and to Bowie. He built a Telephone Exchange building in Bowie.  He was also involved with telephone lines connecting Globe, the Gila Valley, Solomonville, Bowie, El Paso, Tombstone, Douglas, and Bisbee.  Although BB didn’t have the saw mill any longer, phone service was even made available at the saw mill.

Tom Adams, was a rancher in Texas Canyon and was setting up phone systems in his area.  There was also a phone system in Courtland. Telephones are used every day, and more and more small phone companies went into business.  As more and more of these companies were connecting to each other, a system needed to be established to connect phones to more than just a local area.  Thomas joined with the Adams Phone Company and the Courtland Phone Company to combine their phone companies for the mutual good of all.  They incorporated as the New State Telephone and Telegraph Company with headquarters in Willcox.  By combining they were able to improve phone service by installing metal wire on poles in places where some phone line had just been lain on the ground.  They were now able to cover about 400 miles with phone service.

Telephone service was being built in other areas of Arizona by the Arizona Telephone and Telegraph Company.  This company was acquired by the Mountain States Telephone Company in 1912. In 1916, the property of the New State Telephone and Telegraph Company was acquired, consisting of five small exchanges east of Benson in Cochise County with some connecting lines.

These small phone companies were not built by engineers or people trained in building telephone lines or telephone exchanges.   They knew very little about the selection of proper materials and equipment.  In some places the telephone lines were placed on the same poles as the electric lines making for a very dangerous situation.

Within seven years after the principal purchases, the telephone plant in the entire State was practically rebuilt, exchanges enlarged to keep pace with the demand for telephones, land purchased and new buildings erected, equipment changed as justified to give a higher class of service, new exchanges put in service, lines extended into new territory and additional long-distance circuits strung to meet the increasing demand.