Anyway, I'm always looking for historical information on Central Illinois, and I came across this little tidbit recently about the first phones being installed in Oakford. I'm sure other communities have similar stories about the new technology of the telephone, but I bet few stories end the way Oakford's does.
This information is quoted from the book, They Left Their Mark In Oakford, 1872, which can be found online thanks to the Illinois Genealogy Trails website.
"It was hailed as a step forward in communications when in about 1900 the first Oakford telephone was installed in Dave and Ellen Lee's boarding and rooming house. when the Independent Telephone Company installed another phone in the same room Mrs. Lee was kept busy relaying messages to people on the different lines.
West of town, the farmers built the first lines known as the People's Telephone Company.
Most switchboards were located in the operators homes.
Then the story gets really good. In the early days of the Oakford telephones, a drunk (God love 'em) made a phone call early one Sunday morning on the line coming from west of town. He claimed that a band of gypsies were moving through the countryside, and they had just invaded Oakford. These gypsies were "killing babies" and "kidnapping women" among other things. Word spread quickly, and a madness ensued. People stormed out of their houses with their children and headed to nearby fields and timbers to hide from the gypsies with their children. When the news reached the Mount Olive Church, the people saw fit to suspend services so they could go find the gypsies and protect their possessions. Vigilante groups were assembled, roadblocks were set up, and believe it or not, no gypsies were found.
I guess this was Oakford's first prank phone call. It was certainly better than anything I came up with in my teenage years.
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