The First Person to Own a Telephone in Michigan

Phones ain’t what they used to be. Show a picture of a telephone that’s over 20 years old to some members of the current generation, and they may not have a clue as to what it is.

Wall and candlestick phones are even more confusing to anyone under 20 years old.

Aside from that, have you ever wondered who owned the first telephone in Michigan? That distinction goes to the president of a former Grand Rapids plaster company. His name was J.W. Converse and he happened to be a personal friend of Alexander Graham Bell, who sent him a couple of telephone prototypes.

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Converse owned considerable real estate as well as several plaster quarries. That first pair of telephones was connected by a telegraph line from Coverse’s office to his plaster mill on the west side. The phones were publicly demonstrated on August 4, 1877.

A month later, the first commercial telephone line was installed in Detroit. It connected a drugstore to its laboratory a couple of miles away.

The Bell Telephone Company was incorporated in Boston on July 9, 1877 and three months later a license was granted to the Michigan Telephone and Telegraph Construction Company, giving Detroit free reign to operate phone lines.....and Michigan’s telephones were off and running.