The Story of North Dakota's Telephone Cooperatives
Jerry and Mary Nagel, North Plains Press, Aberdeen, South Dakota 1979
"Dakota Central really started just two or three months after the telephone amendments were passed by Congress. The Stutsman County Farmers Union asked to have someone sent from Washington to explain the new act at a county Farmers Union convention in Jamestown, so they sent out a guy by the name of Saminaw and he didn't know as much about it as we did, " claims Oliver Sund, chairman of the Dakota Central board of directors. "But he told us that there was such an act and that there would be a telephone for everybody."
This introduction, to the rural telephone loan program was followed by efforts led by the Farmers Union and REA field representatives to organize county telephone cooperatives. About 500 farmers met at Jamestown March 31, 1950, to organize the Stutsman County Rural Telephone Cooperative. The Wells County Telephone Cooperative was organized at the Heaton Hall July 20, 1950, and a Foster‑Eddy County organization was formed November 30, 1950, at a meeting attended by over 150 people at the courthouse in Carrington.
Many meetings were held at the township level to explain the program and sign up members. The meetings were held at the Streeter schoolhouse, the Kensal fire hall, the Clementsville township hall and at Stott's Hall at Montpelier. Meetings started at eight and were held at Sykeston on Monday, Bowdon on Wednesday and at Hurdsfield on Thursday. Organizers worked hard and fast in hopes of bringing reliable telephone service to the farmers and townspeople in their areas. The paced slowed, however, as it became apparent that the number of subscribers in each area would be too low to support telephone cooperatives on the county level.
December 29, 1950, members of the telephone committees in Stutsman, Foster, Eddy, and Wells counties met in Carrington and decided to unite to form one organization. A temporary organizing committee was selected. Its members were Peter Friezen, Cathay; Mr. and Mrs. Roland Erman, Heaton; Joe Strauss, Manfred; Orval Hart, Chaseley; Fred Neumiller and Leo Widicker, Bowdon; and A.A. Houghton, Hurdsfield.
April 11, 1951, Dakota Central Rural Telephone Cooperative elected its first board of directors. The board was composed of two representatives from each county and one representative at large, The representatives were Fred R. Topp and Russell Belquist, Eddy County; Peter Friezen and Mrs. Roland Erman, Wells County; J.H. Lyman and Walter Krueger, Foster County; Albert Deede and Oliver Sund, Stutsman County; and Lawrence Utke, member at large. Oliver Sund was elected chairman of the board.
At a meeting in Carrington six days later, the four county organization decided to incorporate. Although the meeting was characterized by serious discussion, the memories of all who met in the Foster County Courthouse that night are enlivened when their thoughts turn to Albert Deede.
Albert Deede came in late and was quick to gauge the sober tone of the meeting and note an earnest discussion of the imperative issue: incorporation. He did not wish to disturb the setting. But anyone who has sat quietly through long and often wearisome meetings knows the temporary relief of watching a late arrival attempt noiselessly to find a chair, just as those assembled that night know that Albert Deede carefully tiptoed in from the back. They saw him tiptoe down the side of the room and they know that he was just as quiet as a man can be as he slowly lowered himself onto a chair and CRASH! Down went Deede amidst fragments of oak. To say that Albert Deede is not a small man would be to issue understatement, but Deede claimed the chair was much older than he, and nobody doubted that it was. The laughter which followed significantly lightened the tone of the meeting that was to last until midnight for some and 3 a.m. for others.
After discussion drew to a close and most members called it a night, Dakota Central's attorney and board of directors remained to complete the process of incorporation. The bylaws and Articles of Incorporation were drafted, adopted, and signed late that night which history will recognize as the morning of April 18, 1951.
At 3 a.m. the attorney prepared to leave for Bismarck in his old '41 Buick to file the articles with the secretary of State. But much to the weary lawyer's dismay, a troublesome tire had gone flat. While lingering board members looked on, the attorney pumped it up by hand and then headed for the capital city, hoping the tire would hold out. He was waiting outside the office of secretary of State when it opened at eight. Although tired that morning as he drove back to Jamestown where he was to put in another day as attorney for the Farmers Union, Quentin Burdick must have felt true satisfaction knowing that Dakota Central was now on record and could apply for an REA loan.
Dakota Central's first REA loan ($419,000) was approved March 5, 1953. It financed the first phases of a telephone project that now covers most of Wells, Foster, and Stutsman counties and parts of Barnes, Kidder, and Eddy counties.
Elmer Wilson, New Rockford, was hired as temporary manager of the cooperative in 1953, and meetings were held at the Tri‑County Electric building in Carrington. In January 1955 a vacated hatchery building was rented from North American Creameries for office space. This building was later purchased and remodeled and still serves as headquarters. In the fall of 1955, Howard R. Wolle became the first permanent manager of Dakota Central.
Dakota Central's first exchange was acquired when the Medina Telephone Company was purchased in 1953 from its owner, Elmer Kohloff. Kohloff operated the manual exchange until 1954 when an automatic switchboard was installed.
The second acquisition, the Woodworth Telephone Company, was purchased from Hugo Bohl in 1956. The Fairview and Woodworth Northwest telephone companies, both farmer‑owned switcher lines, were also purchased in 1956. Dakota Central purchased the Barlow Mutual and the Grace City telephone companies in 1957, the Retzlaff Telephone Company of Cathay in 1958, the Bowdon Independent Telephone Company in 1961, and the Hurdsfield Telephone Company in 1963, along with many other farmer‑owned switch& lines operating out of these magneto systems.
Facilities serving the communities of Sykeston, Heaton, Edmunds, Ypsilanti, Cleveland, Windsor, Eldridge, and Montpelier were purchased from Northwestern Bell in 1957. These were multi‑party lines operating out of Jamestown and Carrington. The Ontario Telephone Company of Bowdon and the Crystal Lake Telephone Company of Hurdsfield were the last to be acquired. They were farmer‑owned lines that had been switched by Dakota Central since dial service was initiated in the Bowdon and Hurdsfield areas and were purchased at the time the Bowdon exchange was upgraded to one‑party service in 1976.
Until 1974 Dakota Central owned eight mufti‑party switcher lines serving sixty subscribers adjacent to Carrington. The lines were switched into the Carrington Office of Northwestern Bell, and in 1974 approximately half of the subscribers nearest Carrington were sold to Northwestern Bell. The remainder were taken into the Grace City exchange when it was upgraded in 1974.
In the fall of 1956, the Medina and Woodworth exchanges became the first operated by Dakota Central to be cut over to modern dial service. After several years of inactivity due to the unavailability of loan funds, the Windsor, Ypsilanti, Sykeston, and Grace City exchanges were cut over to modern dial service, followed by the Bowdon and Edmunds exchanges.
Since 1964, when work in the Hurdsfield area of the Bowdon exchange was completed, Dakota Central has provided all modern dial service.
In 1971 Dakota Central made plans to upgrade its entire system: aerial lines would be replaced with weatherproof buried cable and all subscribers would have one‑party service. In December of 1973, Ypsilanti became the first exchange to receive the upgraded service and was followed by the Grace City exchange in 1974 and the Woodworth, Medina, and Windsor exchanges in 1975. The project was completed in 1976 when the Bowdon, Sykeston, and Edmunds exchanges were upgraded.
Dakota Central Rural Telephone Cooperative Association
| Directors | Years Served |
| Oliver Sund, Cleveland | 1951‑present |
| Albert Deede, Woodworth | 1951‑present |
| J.H. Lyman, Grace City | 1951‑1964 |
| Lawrence Utke, Glenfield | 1951‑1954 |
| Charlotte Erman, Heaton | 1951‑1960 |
| Peter Friezen, Cathay | 1951‑1960 |
| Russell Belquist, New Rockford | 1951‑1955 |
| Fred R. Topp, McHenry | 1951‑1956 |
| Walter Krueger, Carrington | 1951‑1959 |
| Leslie Hewitt, Sykeston | 1954‑present |
| James Anderson, Carrington | 1955‑1959 |
| Rudolph Topp, Grace City | 1956‑1959 and 1964‑1971 |
| Edward Strom, Ypsilanti | 1959‑1968 |
| M.A. Jablonski, Medina | 1959‑present |
| Reuel Harrison, Edmunds | 1959‑present |
| Robert Sucket, Bowdon | 1960‑1975 |
| Dale Riedesel, Cathay | 1960‑1975 |
| Andrew Headland, Ypsilanti | 1968‑present |
| Marie Pfeifer, Grace City | 1971‑1976 |
| Louis Bibelheimer, Cathay | 1975‑present |
| Oscar Fuhrman, Bowdon | 1975‑present |
| Calvin Topp, Grace City | 1976‑present |
| Managers | |
| Elmer E. Wilson | 1953‑1955 |
| Howard R. Wolle | 1955‑1968 |
| Lowell D. Swart | 1968‑present |
| Attorneys | |
| Quentin N. Burdick | 1951‑1953 |
| James R. Jungroth | 1953‑1957 |
| Thomas A. Roney | 1957‑1959 |
| Fabian Noack | 1959‑present |
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 445