A 124.2 Story
When Ian Macky listed this CD 124.2 Hemingray product for sale on Ebay, he received a couple of interesting emails from a collector in Colorado.
his emails, goes as follows: “I live within about an hour’s walk from what was an 1870’s phone line that these were used on, and they were used side by side with 124.1’s. This part of the line is in the Colorado Rockies about 30 miles from Denver.
“The best I have been able to come up with are a scant few shards of a 124.2, maybe just a bit bluer than your insulator, plus a piece of a light aqua dome of a 124.1.
A close friend (Mike Miller), now
deceased, found four 124.2’s with the pins still in place alongside an old mule trail near the route of the line in 2000. How lucky was that! He said they looked like a hiker had picked them up, carried them a ways, then sat down to catch his breath but forgot about them. None of the four were mint, and in fact were in similar
“While walking that line myself, I found a very rotten cross arm I am certain was from the original 1870’s build that held the 124.1’s and 124.2’s. It was short, maybe 4 feet long, had 2 wooden pins, and it still had 5-6 huge square nails at the center with no signs of iron straps or bolts to hold those. According to Mike Miller, the line was rebuilt in 1899, which accounts for the two-tone purple R Good tolls and later both light and dark W.G.M. tolls that were also found on the line.
“Another story I heard, and I cannot vouch for fact and so it is hearsay as far as I am concerned, is that the portion of the line that followed south out of the city of Golden right at the foothills contained the only known light purple 124.2 in the hobby. “Thanks for listening to my story of this fantastic line. Supposedly it was the third ‘long distance’ telephone line built in the United States, roughly 35 miles
Editor’s Note: Frederick O. Vaille, age 28, founded the Denver Dispatch Company in 1879. By 1881 the company, by then known as Colorado Telephone, had extended lines to Boulder, Golden, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Central City, as well as to many mining communites in the Rocky Mountains. Historical Source: Denver Post.
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