Charles E. Hall, 1861-1941 [RG1046.AM]

HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID

RG1046.AM:  Charles E. Hall, 1861-1941

Papers:  1879, 1925-1930

Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska: Telephone company executive

Size:  One folder

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Born September 26, 1861 in St. Joseph County, Michigan, Charles E. Hall moved with his parents to Iowa when he was two years old. In 1872 he returned to Michigan with his mother, where he attended school and worked until 1882. Hall became interested in working as a telegraph operator. In 1882 he returned to Iowa where he taught school and studied more about the telegraph business. His interest shifted to the relatively new telephone industry, and Hall took a job with the Iowa Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Over the next several years, Hall worked as a lineman, groundman, installer and as manager of several exchanges. When the Iowa Telephone Company consolidated with the Nebraska Telephone Company and the Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company, Hall became the assistant general commercial superintendent of the newly formed Northwestern Group of Bell Companies. On August 1, 1911, he moved his headquarters to Omaha, Nebraska, where he would eventually become their vice president and general manager.

The companies were reorganized in 1921 and became the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company. Hall became their tax commissioner and later, in 1924, served as secretary of the company. He retired from the company in 1930 and moved to California. Charles E. Hall died in Los Angeles, California, on February 16, 1941.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

The collection consists of one folder containing articles, 1925-1927, by Charles E. Hall on the history of the telephone, including one on Louis H. Korty, “the telephone pioneer of Nebraska.” Photocopies of letters to Korty, 1879, establishing Omaha’s first telephone exchange and a biographical sketch, 1930, of Hall are included.

INVENTORY

Item

1. 1. Letters (3) to Louis H. Korty, 1879 (copies only)

1. 1. Hall, Charles E., “Half a Century With the Telephone,” Telephony: The American Telephone Journal, vol. 88, no. 22, May 30, 1925

1. 1. Hall, Charles E., “Fifty Years of Telephone History and the Story of Telephone Pioneering in Nebraska,” 1926, 11 page typescript

1. 1. Hall, Charles E., “Fifty Years of Telephone History,” Telephony: The American Telephone Journal, vol. 91, no. 5, pp. 16-19.

1. 1. Hall, Charles E., “Louis H. Korty, the Telphone Pioneer of Nebraska and the West,” Telephony: The American Telephone Journal, September 1926, pp. 4-5.

1. 1. “Telephone Builder, Historian: Charles E. Hall, Secretary of Company, Retires,” The Northwestern Bell, July, 1930, p. 14.

Subject headings:

Douglas County (Nebraska)

Hall, Charles E., 1861-1941

Korty, Louis H., 1848-1921

Northwestern Bell Telephone Company (Omaha, Nebraska)

Omaha (Nebraska)

Telephone — History

Telephone — Nebraska

Revised TMM        10-07-2009; 01-17-2017