Talking News: The Story of Farmers Telephone Company

The story of Farmers Telephone Company, 1920 to 2008, is a living history project. Testimonial and memoir reflect life in rural America when homesteaders moved to Pleasant View, an isolated community in southwest Colorado. It is dry land bean field country where only 12 inches of available moisture each year yields the finest pinto beans in the world. The country is sensate; beautiful; the local people entertaining and ernest storytellers. The book recalls first-hand accounts of the need for communication and how it was solved by community members working together for the common weal, how they built the company by hand, managed it and nurtured advancements in telecommunications over the years. It thrives today because the entrepeneurial spirit of many farming families found a way to provide for communication over telephone lines, replacing the only means available until 1920: on foot or on horseback.