Early landline telephone service in the Broomfield area was dominated by party lines. A party line was shared by multiple customers and was charged at a lower cost rate. You didn’t know until you picked up the handset if the line was already in use; if it was, etiquette required you to put the handset down and try again later. (Of course, many people couldn’t resist the urge to listen in.) Some of us may fondly recall this example of rural communications.
In his oral history interview, Del Morr says, “We had a tiny little post office down on the highway where everybody went to get their mail, and the postmaster and his wife held forth there. And they would call you on your ten-party phone line, and say, ‘Oh, you have a package. Looks like it’s interesting.’”
On the other hand, you also had the human-assisted version of cell phone call routing. Del says, “And the two charming people were the telephone operators. Dr. Brunner’s wife Carrie and . . . Jessie Kozisek, the daughter of grandma Kozisek, were telephone operators. And they always seemed to know wherever you were in town. And if you got a phone call, they’d call you at that person’s house and say, “I have a phone call for you.”
Photo: Early telephone office, including Edna Maines, Bev Hansen, Opal Gambel, and Jessie Kozisek. Edna Maines lived in the brick building at 120th and Lowell where the switchboard was located. https://hub.catalogit.app/broomfield-history-collections/folder/photographs/entry/46a040d0-48a3-11ed-ab8a-bf49b1a63c01.
We hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Broomfield history!