Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building, Waynoka Oklahoma

The Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building, at 200 South Main Street (also shown on tax assessor's records as 1485 Main), in Waynoka, Oklahoma, was built in 1931. It is the only town's only extant resource to represent the historical role of technological expansion and corporate consolidation in the development of telephone service for the residents of Waynoka.

The erection of the Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building in 1931 came at the end of a thirty-year period of corporate consolidation and technological innovation that led to telephone access for most Americans and their interconnection via a nationwide calling system. The history of telephone communications in the United States may be summarized in the words "universal service," a term that has connotations both of "a telephone in every home and business" and "a nation united by telephone service."

In the early years of telephone history, from the first decade of the twentieth century, myriads of small, local telephone companies grew up in towns and cities across America. Locally owned, these exchanges provided "old-fashioned," personal service to their subscribers by connecting them to each other through an exchange switchboard. A telephone operator, or more than one of them, physically plugged and unplugged wires into subscribers' designated outlets in the switchboard. This cumbersome physical process, with personal interaction between operator and customer, "personal service," began to be changed to relay-based automated dialing in the early 1920s in large markets such as New York. Operators were still required, however. In smaller markets, such as Waynoka, Oklahoma, operator-assisted calling remained viable even into the 1960s despite huge technological innovations in switching equipment.

Before World War I and before the revolution in technology, however, competition between companies began. Some of these organizations were very good at merging in order to control a larger share of the market of telephone subscribers, Bell Telephone Company being the prime example. Bell gobbled up little local exchanges and made the corporation bigger every year. But Bell was not the only phone company in town, in many instances. Some towns, even in Oklahoma, had "dual service," that is, two phone companies, with interconnecting toll lines or without interconnection. (This situation still persists in some Latin American nations.) Further, by 1915 it was possible to call coast-to-coast via the interconnecting toll lines that linked small and large communities across the United States. Making a long-distance call was extremely cumbersome and cost-prohibitive for most people, as the call connection had to be made physically, by a human being, in each town along the way, from switchboard-to-switchboard from its origin to its destination.

In the United States, by 1920, 30 percent of households had a telephone, as did an amazing 38.7 percent of American farms. In Oklahoma, by 1918, more than 300 small and large towns and cities had telephone service. Most systems were "local," that is, a locally owned and operated company owned the equipment. Interestingly, 23 Oklahoma towns had dual service. In Oklahoma, the competitors for local owners were Southwestern Bell, Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph, which later became major communications corporations, and a growing number of consolidating companies called "regional independents." One of these "regional independent" companies, Standard Telephone Company of Texas (often mistakenly called "State Telephone Company of Texas") grew up through the efforts of an Amarillo, Texas, entrepreneur, J. Lindsay Nunn. Nunn had already created and sold a consolidated local exchange company in the Texas Panhandle. After World War II ended, he built another one, chartered in Texas and headquartered in Lubbock. Standard Telephone Company of Texas (STT) was registered with the Oklahoma Secretary of State to do business in 1927 and began acquiring local exchanges and building itself into a real competitor for the "major companies."

A Waynoka local telephone exchange had been chartered as early as February 1905 and registered with the Secretary of State as Waynoka Telephone Company. At least by 1909, some Waynokans had telephones in their homes and businesses. As it grew and made some toll connections with other local companies, by 1911 it had become Waynoka Local and Long Distance Telephone Company, and so it remained until it was acquired by Standard Telephone Company of Texas in 1927. The offices, operators, and switchboard were variously located in business buildings downtown, once at 112 N. Main (upstairs, 1911) and later at the corner of Taft and Cecil (1926). Under the leadership of J. Lindsay Nunn and a cadre of Chicago investors, in 1927-28 Standard acquired 46 local exchanges in western Oklahoma and West Texas, beginning with the local phone exchange in Shattuck, Oklahoma, as well as "several hundred Long Distance lines." STT was looking attractive to larger entities as a takeover target. Another significant regional independent was Southwestern Associated Telephone Company, and in 1931-32, Standard and Southwestern were in the process of merging. Within this context of the history of telephone corporate consolidation came the planning and construction of the Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building.

The Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building, an Art Deco-style property, was erected in 1931 by Standard Telephone Company of Texas. In February 1930 Standard purchased a lot in Block 12 of Waynoka Original Town on the southwest corner of Main and Waynoka streets. There the company planned to build a new exchange building to house its switches and operators and also planned to install new technology, such as battery-operated telephones and new, buried telephone lines through the business section of town. Existing residential poles would be moved to the alleys. This civic improvement project would greatly enhance the appearance of both commercial and residential parts of town. Plans called for the building to be a one-story, 45-foot-by-67-foot edifice "modern in every respect."

STT let the contract for the new telephone building in late September 1930. A bid of $11,944 from G. E. Aurty and Son, of Enid, called for completion on a 70-day construction schedule. A month later Aurty had not fulfilled his contracted scheduling arrangements, his contract was cancelled, and a new contract was made to J. W. Wilson Construction Company (place unknown) for slightly more than $13,000. Additional costs were planned for an entirely new switchboard, at a cost of $15,000, plus new "self-starting battery phones" that did not have to be cranked.

Seemingly, all this was a boon to the community. Construction began after the first of the year 1931. The building was completed at an unknown date but certainly by mid-summer of that year-when the complaints began. Standard lowered the Waynoka operators' wages and went up on the monthly charge for business phones and service. In October or November the City filed a formal complaint with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, to which action Standard responded, via Vice President J. M. Keffer, that the company had sunk $60,000 into the Waynoka project, "including $30,000 for building and equipment" and needed to recoup its investment. The City Fathers debated taxing the poles or setting up a public, city-owned telephone company, stringing the phone lines on the existing electric poles already owned by the city. This was no empty threat, as municipal governments elsewhere in the United States were taking this option as an alternative to corporate ownership of a public utility. The Woods County Enterprise voiced the public feeling: "While all agree that Standard of Texas has a mighty fine building on Main Street, it is the desire [of the public] to effect the building['s] payments in smaller amounts" (i.e., by means of a lower telephone bill). Left unresolved, the issue would surely prompt the telephone company, by this time merging with Southwestern Associated Telephone Company, to abandon the new exchange building on Main Street. Fortunately, in October 1932 the Corporation Commission ordered the lowering of business rates for Waynoka.

STT/Southwestern remained in the building and continued to do so after the corporation consolidated with the General Telephone Company (now GTE Southwest). This merger occurred after the original GTE, called Associated Telephone Utilities Company, had gone broke in 1933 and been reorganized as General Telephone and Electric in 1934. GTE owned and operated the exchange in Waynoka until 1994.

During that half-century, a significant change in technology occurred. Electronic switchboards replaced operator-assisted calling boards all across the United States. Automated dialing became generally available in the early 1950s, and dial telephones phones began to proliferate. On August 30^th, 1960, Waynoka's service was changed to automated dialing via dial phones. The manually operated switchboard and the operators went away, and the building was rehabilitated into a switching station for fully automated equipment in a climate-controlled environment. Only a business office and a few staff remained, and only for a few more years. This was the conclusion of a corporate consolidation and technological innovation pattern repeated thousands of times across the United States in the middle fifty years of the twentieth century.

In April 1994, GTE Southwest sold this and other exchanges to Pioneer Telephone Cooperative. Pioneer's operations were conducted from Guymon, obviating the need for a Waynoka staff, except for maintaining a new switching building erected on the back side of Lots 1 and 2 of Block 12, behind the old exchange building. Pioneer leased the exchange building to small businesses for several years and then deeded the land and Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building to the Waynoka Historical Society in 2008.

The 1931 Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building is the only example of Art Deco architectural style in Waynoka, Oklahoma. It is in moderately good condition and retains almost all of its original historic fabric.

Popular from 1920 into the 1940s, Art Deco style turned away from traditional styles. Rather than reviving the past, it looked to the future with stylized decoration and simpler forms. It appeared both in commercial and residential architecture around the United States but seems to have been less used in small towns of Oklahoma such as Waynoka.

Waynoka's telephone building exhibits most of the characteristics of the Art Deco style as applied to a modest commercial edifice. Although the building is a detached, horizontally massed one-part commercial block, the horizontal effect is relieved by vertical incisions or grooves in the walls all around the roofline. The wall surface is smooth stucco. Geometric motifs occur on the two primary elevations. These include outwardly projecting entrance surrounds under short, stepped towers or parapets. A stylized swag and round medallion emphasize the principal (Main Street) entrance. The window openings occur under three-part stepped lintels, and the metal casement window units have awning-opening center sections, all typical 1930s Art Deco applications. Shallow pilasters in the east and north walls have chevron-like pointed tops that give a vertical emphasis. Vertical reeding just below the line of the flat roof continues on all four sides of the building.

Building Description

The Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building, at 200 South Main Street in Waynoka, Oklahoma, was constructed in 1931 in Modern Movement/Art Deco style. The setting is residential and remains as it was historically. The footprint is an irregular L-shape with stepped out areas. The Art Deco detailing on all four elevations is the building's most outstanding visual characteristic. The one-story commercial-block building features a flat roof and vertical reeding in the walls below the roofline in all elevations, up-stepped towers with fluting and other decoration above projecting entrances in the east and north elevations, and metal-sash windows in all elevations. In the east and north walls, vertical fluting and three-part lintels emphasize the window openings. These elements, as well as stuccoed walls, are typical of Art Deco style. Alterations include the historical, 1960, removal of four windows and a pedestrian door and the infilling of a vehicle entrance in the north elevation.

Detailed Description

The Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building lies immediately south of downtown Waynoka at 200 South Main Street (also shown on tax assessor's records as 1485 Main). Erected in 1931, the building is oriented east-west with its primary elevation on Main, facing east. The secondary elevation, along Waynoka Street, also provides access to the interior. The south elevation faces a residential lot and also has an entrance.

Presently and historically, the surrounding neighborhood is uniformly residential for a half-block to the north, two blocks to the west, and half a dozen blocks east and south. Historically, a gasoline service station was placed diagonally, on the northeast corner of Main and Waynoka; that building is now a residence. A contemporary of the telephone building, the United Methodist Church building, lies within view a block to the east. Two blocks west, at 200 South Cleveland, is the Santa Fe Depot and Harvey House.

The Waynoka Telephone Exchange Building is a straightforward, detached, one-part commercial block with multiple entrances. The building measures 67 feet east to west (along Waynoka Street) and 33 feet north to south along the primary elevation (on Main Street). The south elevation extends 47 feet from east to west before turning perpendicularly to the south for twelve feet, creating a 12-by-20-foot extension that completes the 67-foot length and 45-foot maximum width of the building. Thus, the footprint is irregularly L-shaped, with a setback area along the north elevation and the extension off the south wall on the west side. The foundation is concrete, visible in various areas. The flat roof has an unknown roofing material. Construction material is concrete block with a skim coat of stucco. The joint lines between the blocks are still visible in the east, south, and west elevations, where the stucco is shallow. The north elevation is more heavily stuccoed, for reasons given below. The walls are capped with a concrete coping.

The style of the building is Art Deco, exhibited in smooth stucco and use of low-relief vertical lines and geometrical motifs. The walls are 12 feet in height all around, but the roofline varies, with upward projections or towers that extend further upward to mark the entrances in the east and north elevations. Shallow, pointed pilasters on the east and north elevations establish the window bays. Each window opening in the east and north elevations has a stepped-out lintel, above which is shallow, three-part stepped vertical fluting. All around the building, just below the roof line, is an element that unifies all of the elevations, an eighteen-inch-deep band of shallow, vertical reeding. All window materials are the original metal-sash units, but two of three doors are not original.

The east elevation offers the building's main entrance. It is divided into two asymmetrical sections. The north section provides the entryway, with an elaborate, 12-foot-wide door that surround steps out one foot from the east or main wall. This area offers the building's most elaborate Art Deco ornamentation. Over an inset doorway, a stylized three-step swag and round center medallion attract the eye. From the swag, the eye is directed upward by three vertical reveals that turn inward to point toward a vertical flute that connects the roofline with the medallion over the door. In the opening to the building, the original steel door was replaced at an unknown date with an aluminum-framed glass-slab door. To the right of the door is an original metal Art Deco-style coach light fixtures (its mate, to the left of the door, no longer has its lamp). An original brass mail slot is placed to the left of the door. The numbers 1485, not original, sit above the mail slot; this would indicate one of the building's two street addresses.

The south half of the east elevation has two window bays separated by three shallow, pointed pilasters. The metal-sash window units are glazed 3x4, and the center two rows open outward in awning fashion. The sills are concrete, and lintels are the above-described three-part-step features, and vertical fluting above the lintels. Access to the main entrance is facilitated by a wide sidewalk that leads up from the city sidewalk to a five-foot by six-foot low stoop outside the entry.

The building's south side is plain. The wall is smooth stucco, with no elaboration except for the band of shallow, vertical reeding or grooving at the top. In the wall, the joint lines between the concrete blocks are visible under a thin application of stucco that is peeling in places. On the east end, two window openings have concrete sills and original metal-sash units with 3x4 glazing that open outward in the center two rows. There are, however, no elaborations above the openings. At the top of the wall the band of vertical reeding continues. In the west end of this elevation, an original steel door unit provides access to the interior. An apparently original light fixture sits high in the wall between the windows and the doorway. A concrete walkway leads from the Main Street curb along the south wall of the Exchange Building, makes a right turn, and ends in the doorway.

Just past the doorway, the south elevation makes a 90-degree turn to the south to form the 12-by-20-foot ell, or extension. The east-facing wall of the extension has two of the metal-sash, 3x4, center-opening windows over concrete sills. The south wall of the extension is devoid of openings. The band of fluting continues around the extension on both walls.

The extension's south wall falls directly at the property line. To the west and east, a metal fence demarcates the telephone building property from that of the neighboring residence.

The west elevation continues the stucco cladding and vertical top banding. There are 5 openings on the south end: two 3x4 metal-sash, center-opening windows light a small room in the 12-by-20 extension. To the north, three smaller, 2x3 metal-sash windows, apparently fixed, illuminate other rooms. All five windows have concrete sills but not elaboration at the top. Also in this elevation, two metal plumbing vents extend from the ground up to several feet above the roofline, and at the northwest corner of the building the wall has an electrical box and several conduits and other transmission devices.

A large, green electrical box sits outside the west wall. Adjacent to the Exchange Building to the west is a large brick building constructed by Pioneer Telephone Company as a switching or exchange house in the early 2000s.

The north elevation is in three parts. The east end, toward Main Street, is a 20-foot-wide stepped out area with one 3x4 center-opening metal sash window under the previously described stepped header and vertical fluting, and over a concrete sill. Near the base of the wall a small, round hole allows the roof to drain rainwater into a shallow, concrete channel that funnels it to the curb. In addition, an electrical conduit box is fixed to the wall.

The 20-foot-wide west end, also stepped out, has an up-stepped roofline, or short tower, over an entrance. Similar to the door surround on the east side, the north elevation's west end entry is marked by vertical lines and fluting over an opening that was originally for a vehicle door accessing a garage. That opening was filled in at some time after 1980, and a new steel pedestrian door installed there. A broad driveway leads from the curb to this entrance, indicating the original function as a garage; presently, a steel post is placed in the concrete driveway as a stop for the pedestrian door. At the bottom corners of the original vehicle door opening are cast-iron bumpers intended to prevent damage to the wall by trucks. Over the entryway is an original Art Deco-style light fixture, and a small, round hole in the wall allows for roof drainage.

Between the two ends of the building, inset about eighteen inches, is a broad center section, marked by six of the shallow, pointed pilasters. Between each of is a bay that is presently smooth stuccoed. Originally, however, four of the bays had a 3x4 metal-sash, center-opening window unit, and the bay furthest west had a pedestrian entry. These are visible in a circa 1932 photograph. The windows and door opening were enclosed in 1960, and all that now remains to indicate their placement is five three-part stepped lintels. The sills were removed, and the openings were filled in and stuccoed.

The north elevation continues the motif of the vertical reeding around the top of the wall just below the roof line. Other than the removal of window and door units, the Art Deco ornamentation remains as original on the north elevation. Other items on this side of the building include an air conditioner compressor and a large fan unit that sit outside the wall.

The interior of the Waynoka Telephone Exchange Buildings reflects the activities conducted there over the course of eighty years. There are three main sections. The east section, which has windows in three elevations, was one large room comprising the public area, or main office, where business was conducted. In the center section, that is, the approximately 26-foot-deep by 32-foot-wide area in the middle of the building, an east-west wall originally divided this area into two long rooms. The south room housed the switching equipment, and the telephone switchboard operators worked there. The "north" room served as storage and as a place for telephone repair. In 1960, the floor plan was changed, and afterward, automated switching equipment filled this area, and the windows and door in the north room were removed in order to create a climate-controlled environment for the equipment. The west section, some 40 feet by 20 feet in dimension, had a garage on the north end, providing service access for telephone trucks. Also in the west section were a mechanical room, restrooms, and a small lounge or break room area (in the extension that projects out to the south). The interior finishes, that is, baseboards, ceiling materials, and interior walls, remain, as far as can be determined.

The alterations are of two types: The first is the replacement two of three original door units. The door at the east entry was replaced by a glass-slab, aluminum-frame unit at an unknown date. The vehicle door on the west side of the north elevation was replaced with a pedestrian door at some time after 1980. The second alteration pertains to the enclosure of openings in the north elevation. Four windows and a pedestrian door on the north were eliminated in 1960.