File:PT&T operators working at Garfield Exchange, Seattle, circa 1921 (MOHAI 9464).jpg

Telephone service in Seattle began with 90 customers in 1883. One of Seattle's original service providers, Sunset Telephone-Telegraph Company (later Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company, then AT&T) built a new exhcange building in 1921 to help handle what was by then 83,347 customers, making half-a-million local telephone calls every day. The Garfield Exchange was built on Queen Anne Hill at at 1529 4th Avenue West and was used until the mid-1960s. This image of telephone operators at work was taken at PT&T's Garfield Exchange shortly after construction. Until the 1950s every phone line ran to an exchange building where young women facing a longboard connected incoming and outgoing phone calls manually.

Caption information source: http://www.qahistory.org/garfield-exchange Caption information source: The Seattle Daily Times, September 2, 1923, page 6

• Subjects (LCTGM): Telephone operators--Washington (State)--Seattle; Telephone switchboards--Washington (State)--Seattle