Snooping around doing searches, I found a few things:
[www.historicsumpter.com]
“Historic Sumpter” mentions telephone & telegraph offices
[www.oslerbooks.com]
“Near the Dixie Summit, nearly a mile high, Austin in winter was still connected to the outside world by telegraph, the railroad, the post office and pack horses if not the stage coach. “
[www.oslerbooks.com]
“The speed of that transformation is multiplied by technologies that supplements, or replaces, the railroads, the newspaper, the radio, the steamship and the telegraph that helped open the world to olde Oregon, Grant Co. and the insular John Day Valley to the world.”
[homepage.mac.com]
Fisk family - ranch near Prairie City ;
“The flow of food, people and conversation was kitchen focused. Grandma, who was also the town postmistress, had experience as a schoolteacher, railroad stationmaster, telephone and telegraph operator. She was a fulltime,
multitasking community, communicator and organizer. She kept the accounts, fed the guests, wrote the
outgoing letters, read aloud the incoming mail, interpreted the news, answered questions and gave freely of her
advice, comfort and reassurance.”
73,
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