About Mulberry Telephone

MULBERRY TELEPHONE COMPANY

The cooperative is privately owned and operated. Officers and directors are Max Whitlock, president, Gerry Neal, vice president, and Jeff Sigler secretary/treasurer. Other directors are Bob Bowman, Joe Lahrman, Paul Weflen, and Lewis Beeler. Randy Maish is the general manager, Kyle Stone is the plant manager, Tony Stewart, Pete Gascho, Greg Maish, Brad Garriott, and Justin Ecenbarger are central office employees. Glen Hitze is the IT/Network Administrator. The business office is run by office manager, Jennifer Leibenguth, and Andrea Schutz, office clerk.

In 1951, Glenn "Scotty" Scott began over 40 years of full time service becoming plant manager. Betty Huffer started in 1958 as a secretary. She retired in 1983 after 25 years. Perry Skiles started working in 1962. Before retiring in 1999, Perry compiled 37 years of service. Jesse Janes worked from 1986-2004 as our general manager. Bonnie Dirbas retired in 2004 after 17 years of service.

Mulberry Telephone Co. has grown rapidly and at the beginning of 2007 will be serving over 3,000 customers from its single exchange as well as offering our own long distance service and internet service, including DSL. The company helped form IFN (Indiana Fiber Network) with 19 other independent telephone companies as well as IVN (Indiana Video Network) with 7 other independent telephone companies to provide advanced telecommunication services throughout the state. In 2006, Mulberry Telephone Company began providing television services over the telephone lines.

The first telephone line in Mulberry was one linking the post office to the railroad station. When the mill was also added to the line, it was so busy with business calls to the mill that it was not available for its originally intended use by the railroad depot and post office. A thunderstorm that destroyed the lines to all three telephones led to a more serious approach in the formation of a local telephone exchange company.

The Mulberry Cooperative Telephone Company was founded in 1901 by Charles Combs and Joe Steckels. It was first known as the Mutual Phone Company and in 1902, it was chartered as the Peoples Cooperative Telephone Company. This charter expired in 1927, and in 1929, it was renamed the Mulberry Cooperative Telephone Company. Metallic service, using two wires for the circuit, was installed the following year. Levi Kratzer was the telephone operator for 32 years.

A 1940 survey showed there were 650 miles of telephone lines and 600 telephones in the Mulberry and Dayton area. Serving a 10-mile square area in western Clinton County and eastern Tippecanoe County, the cooperative nearly doubled its number of stations from 1940 until 1966, bringing that number to approximately 1,200.
Magneto service was in use for six decades. With that operation, it was necessary to crank a generator on the phone that sent a signal to the operator of the switchboard. She would then connect your line to whichever line you wanted to call. It was also possible to call others on your party line without involving the operator by ringing the code for the party being called.

In 1958, the overhead lines were buried, and Mulberry customers no longer had to call a local operator for a connection after the dial service was installed in 1961. Direct distance dialing capabilities became possible 1966. Extended area service was added at the same time enabling Mulberry customers to call Lafayette, Rossville, Buck Creek, Frankfort and Clarks Hill without a toll charge.

In 1987 Mulberry Cooperative converted to digital switching from the old mechanical switch. Since then Mulberry has added voice mail, internet services (DSL and dial-up), equal access toll calling, most custom and class calling features, and our own long distance service.