STRATTON – The Dead River Area Historical Society will host a demonstration of the telephone system used in Stratton until the 1950s at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, at the Historical Society building at 170 Main St.

Anna Smart, operator of that system, worked for Somerset Telephone Co. and will present a program on the use of it.

She worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for a dollar an hour and moved up to $1.50 when she took over 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., which were the busiest hours of the day. At that time, $1.50 an hour was considered a good wage.

The company provided a bed for the late night workers. Around 10 p.m. the switchboard would quiet down so the telephone operators turned off the system and set an alarm. Any calls that came in after 10 p.m. set the alarm off to wake the operator, who then had to stay up until the call was finished.

Smart will tell about private lines and party lines and how many short rings or longs rings it took to contact people and share information about how things were in the not too distant past.

Anna Bean Smart lived in Dead River as a small child then moved to Flagstaff until it was flooded. At that time she moved to Stratton and finished her schooling then married Bill Smart. They have two sons, Robert and Bryan. The Smarts now live in Cornish.

For more information, call Mary Henderson at 246-2271.