VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Houston Telephone Museum celebrates the history of telephonic communication in Houston. Included in the displays are replicas of Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone, early switchboards from Houston and other Texas cities, poles, lines, tools, advertising materials, and photos and dozens of telephones ranging from crank devices to early cordless models.

The museum features cases of glass insulators and rows of telephones. Inside its galleries, country scenes are recreated complete with telephone poles and virtual spaghetti bowls of wires.

A vast collection of switchboards, starting with the primitive "drop leaf" models is also on display. Included is a Braille switchboard formerly used at Lighthouse for the Blind.

The Houston Telephone Museum is also one of the few places visitors can view the tools used for all the tasks required over the years to maintain our telephone communications system.