30 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981 Add this Digest to your personal   or   The Telecom Digest for July 18, 2012 Volume 31 : Issue 174 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Museum of Telephone History at risk (Dave Garrett) ====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 23:07:56 -0500
From: Dave Garrett <dave@compassnet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Museum of Telephone History at risk
Message-ID: <MPG.2a6ea11be6e9659a98a2fd@208.90.168.18>

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the museum except as an 
appreciative visitor. My wife and I frequently walk our dog past the 
building housing the museum. It is (or was, until recently) an actively 
operating AT&T facility with the museum occupying donated space on an 
upper floor. We became concerned upon seeing the for-sale sign appear at 
about the same time that the fenced parking lot went from being 
practically full of service trucks at night to housing only a handful of 
them, and a recent update on their website 
http://www.houstontelephonemuseum.com/
 confirmed our fears:

>>>>>
The Doc Porter Museum of Telephone History is in trouble.

AT&T has put our building up for sale, and we have just discovered that 
no provisions have been put in place to move or house our vast 
collection.

We currently are located on the second floor of 1714 Ashland Street in 
Houston, Texas, in the historic Heights area.

This space houses our wonderful collection of telephones, switchboards, 
instruments, documentation, books, and all the other pieces of telephone 
history that has taken many years to compile.

Our collection is one of the last in the country.  With the closing of 
the telephone museums in Dallas and others, we are the one of the last 
in Texas, and one of only a handful in the country.

Most everyone who visits our Museum is extremely surprised and delighted 
by our tremendous collection of telephone history.

We are in desperate need to relocate.  Any ideas?  Please contact us.

We will be updating this page.
<<<<<

They have a truly impressive collection, and I have no doubt that most 
anyone reading this would find much of interest. This isn't the first 
time that the building has been put up for sale, but given that the 
property covers almost a full block in the middle of a high-value 
residential area currently undergoing a fair amount of new development, 
I expect it's not long for this world. AT&T has generously made space 
available in each of the three locations the museum has occupied since 
1966, and it's operated as a labor of love by retired telco employees. 
I'm hoping that AT&T will once again come through for them, but the 
update above doesn't sound good. 

Dave





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