Way Back When – SB in March 1926

Happy Birthday to the Telephone! Folks in Santa Barbara this month were remembering the 50th anniversary of the invention of the telephone. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first telephone message: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.”

The local paper noted that it wasn’t until about 1886 that telephones began to appear in Santa Barbara. “Forty years ago, it was considered an important news item when a family or a merchant installed a telephone.” In fact, there were no telephone numbers listed in the Santa Barbara city directories until 1905, when the numbers listed were only three or four digits.