Dedham Tales

There has been quite a favorable response to my last post about the wooden street signposts that remain in Dedham. During my search for more of these, I discovered (with the help of Google maps street view) that one had disappeared from the corner of Mt. Vernon Street and Woodleigh Road some time after April, 2022.

Turns out, rather than an example of some nefarious act of vandalism or theft, the missing signpost is an inspiring story of civic pride. For years, this particular signpost has been maintained (including hand painting the faded street names) by nearby resident Paul Reynolds, Fablevision CEO, Blue Bunny mainstay, and long time supporter of Dedham cultural and charitable organizations. After noticing the tipped over post last fall, Paul discovered the bottom had rotted out and could not be fixed.

Not to worry! Through the generous cooperation of the town DPW, a new post has been crafted, delivered and awaits the addition of street names before being placed in its usual corner.

While these signposts are not very practical (hard to read, in need of constant maintenance) and were eventually replaced for those reasons, they clearly stir strong feelings of nostalgia and stand out as something uniquely Dedham. That’s why they should be preserved, and perhaps restored as Paul Reynolds has done, so they can be appreciated for years to come.

Brian Keaney correctly identified the Verizon building on Washington Street. I remember in 6th or 7th grade scrounging thin multi/colored wire from their trash so I could give it to the girls in my class to make rings out of. I bet most of us have never been inside this building. Here’s a little history:

In July of 1954 the 88-year-old wooden J. Everett Smith Market building on Washington Street next to Memorial Hall was knocked down to make way for the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company’s new telephone exchange building. Construction began on the buildig in late 1955 and the cornerstone was laid on April 4, 1956. Inside the cornerstone a metal receptacle was placed which held “records and memoranda which describe fully and graphically the town of Dedham as it exists today” (Dedham Transcript)The gathered crowd included selectmen, telephone company officials, the town’s postmaster, police chief Walter Carroll, State Representative Francis Harding, Father William Kennedy of St. Mary’s Parish who delivered an invocation, and Reverend Leland Maxfield of the Westwood Baptist Church who delivered a benediction.

The construction of this building brought about a significant change for Dedham residents: the introduction of direct dialing. For years residents could only make operator assisted calls; the Dedham telephone exchange was DEdham 3. Calls were forwarded by operators at the telephone building on Church St. next to the library. Beginning at 2:01 AM on Sunday, December 1, 1957, customers could dial directly and had their numbers switched over to the new Dedham exchange of either DAvis 6 or DAvis 9. Ads began appearing in the Transcript in the fall informing customers of the change and instructing them how to use dial servce. The Avery School PTO even had a workshop for telephone users complete with an instructional film.

Workers had been busy since the beginning of the year, installing wires and cables, and attaching dial inserts to the older phones of customers. Residents also had the opportunity at this time to obtain a new phone in a variety of colors other than the usual black. The changeover to the new service caused the layoff of 176 operators who worked out of the Church St. building.

To commemorate this historic achievement, a long-distance call was made to Dedham, England. The call was placed by Dedham Historical Society president-emeritus Dr. Arthur Worthington from the society’s headquarters on High Street and included members of the society, telephone company executives, and Dedham Country Day 6th grader Sally Reed who got to speak with her English pen-pal. Also on-hand were Selectman Arthur Lee and Miss Margaret Dooley, who had been the chief operator at the Church St. facility for 39 years.

Telephone exchange names were phased out in the 1960s, but live on in popular culture, as in the Glen Miller song Pennsylvania 6-5000 and the book and movie Butterfield-8.

While there are still some customers with land lines who are connected through the building, today it is mainly a switching center for FIOS internet/telephone/television users.