University of Virginia Library

THE FRUIT GROWERS' TELEPHONE
CORPORATION

Realizing the urgent need and demand for more
direct communication with the city of Roanoke and
the outside world, in November, 1910, Messrs. J. T.
Henry, J. B. Willett, R. C. Wertz, J. W. Turner, T. M.
Bell, C. J. Smallwood, and L. D. Bell, organized the
Fruit Growers' Telephone Corporation with headquarters
at Bowman & Willett's store, the property
being owned by Mr. Luther D. Bell, a member of
the County Board of Supervisors of Cave Spring
District.

This Company constructed its lines, and poles, installed
switchboard, and put in a number of telephones
at a cost of $2,000, and arranged to connect with the

lines of the Virginia & Tennessee Telephone Company
at a point near the Roanoke City Almshouse,
thus giving to the promoters and to the subscribers
direct communication with Roanoke, Salem, and Vinton,
without extra cost; it also placed them in direct
communication by telephone, through the long distance
exchange at Roanoke, with the outside world.

The plant of the Fruit Growers' Telephone Corporation
is one of the best in the county, being of the metallic
circuit system and the telephones installed in
the homes and business houses of the subscribers are
of the latest improved models, and the service is excellent
throughout.

Within less than one year after the installation of
the plant, and the connection with the Virginia &
Tennessee Telephone Company, the Corporation had
more than twenty-five subscribers, all of whom are
located in and around Poages Mill, within a radius of
two miles of the central office. Arrangements are
being made for the extension of these lines throughout
the great pippin apple section of the county, and
within a few months practically every apple grower
will be in a position to telephone from his own home
to the best fruit markets of the United States.

The gentlemen whose names are given above are
all directors in the Corporation. J. T. Henry is President;
Luther D. Bell, General Manager; John B. Willett,
Vice President and Secretary. They may be
classed as the leading business men and apple growers
of the Back Creek Section of Roanoke County.

Every man named as a director is an apple grower,
many of them being on a large scale. The organization
of the Fruit Growers' Telephone Corporation has
been the means of placing one of the wealthiest sections
of the county in direct communication with the
outside world, and the promoters are to be congratulated
upon their enterprise.