Description of Historic Place

The O'Leary Telephone Office, is a small hipped-roofed, wood shingle clad structure, located within the Canadian Potato Museum complex located in O'Leary Centennial Park, Prince Edward Island.

Heritage Value

The O'Leary Telephone Office is valued as a rare building specifically built as a telephone office, for its associations and role in interpreting O'Leary's telecommunications past as part of the Canadian Potato Museum complex.

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and PEI's first telephone service dates from 1884. By 1929, 56 private telephone companies were in operation throughout the province in addition to the Island Telephone Company. The first telephone service in O'Leary was a toll station in the home of Albert Adams. Service continued to be provided through switchboards and offices operated from private homes until this structure was constructed on O'Leary's Main Street in 1928. Lulu (Duncan) Smallman worked as the agent until 1938. Further agents were Elsie (O'Brien) MacAusland, Jean (Kennedy) Stetson, Ruth Silliker and Jean Collicutt with many other support staff over the years. The early operators were known as "Central" or the Operator -- the person who knew everyone's telephone number, their address, habits and family history. Employees of telephone switchboards were most exclusively women. The work demanded round the clock service to place emergency calls along with the regular use of the phone to conduct business, contact family members, etc. It was the source of information formally and informally given the party line system with numerous customers sharing a telephone line, each with their own distinctive ring such as "one long and two short". With the introduction of the new dial system in 1961, rural telephone companies were taken over by the Island Telephone Company. In 1968, in the automatic dial system came into operation and the O'Leary Telephone Office closed.

In 2001 the telephone office was donated to the Canadian Potato Museum and moved from Main Street to the museum complex with the assistance of Dr. George Dewar, local physician and Member of the Legislative Assembly. A new foundation and exterior upgrades were completed and interior interpretive displays were created and installed in 2003, with a grand opening in June 2004.

The former O'Leary Telephone Office is a rare existing structure which has found a new life offering a glimpse of early telecommunications not only in small communities but throughout the province.

Source: Heritage Places files, Dept of Economic Growth, Tourism & Culture, Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8, File #: 4310-20/O6

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the telephone office is shown in the following character-defining elements:

- The overall massing of the telephone office building
- The wood shingle cladding
- The slope and pitch of the hipped roof
- The asymmetrical façade with entrance door at the extreme left on the front elevation
- The placement and size of the windows
- The pilasters surrounding the front door entrance
- The hood cover over the entrance door
- The cornice and fascia boards under the projecting roof
- the setting of the telephone office within O'Leary Centennial Park, as part of the Canadian Potato Museum