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Edmonton Telephones’ superintendent from 1909-13, W.R. Griffith
oversaw the amalgamation of the telephone systems of Edmonton and
Strathcona. During the four years of his appointment, he witnessed
the increase of subscribers and demands on Edmonton’s ever-congested
telephone lines. Compounding the domestic pressures on the system
was a planned telephone linkage with Spokane, Washington in 1911.
In early 1912, discussions began between the city of Edmonton and
the provincial government on the sale of the Strathcona phone system
to Edmonton began. On 9 September 1912, Edmonton took control of the
southside system at a cost of $153,000. By the spring of 1913, it
became crucial for Griffith to request help to handling the
increasing number of installations. "He was granted permission to
buy a third horse and wagon," writes Margaret Stinson in The Wired
City: A History of the Telephone in Edmonton.
Despite the growth in construction and installations, the
installation of two new branch exchanges, the purchase of an
automobile and horse-and-buggy, and the necessary additions of
several kilometres of aerial and underground wire, by the end of the
1912 fiscal year, Griffith was able to show a surplus for his
department of $5,000, an astounding amount given the demands on the
system.
Griffith resigned his post under clouded circumstances. At the
behest of the newly elected mayor William Short, three American
engineers had been secretly engaged to study the Edmonton system and
recommend improvements. Griffith was about to take a two-month leave
of absence when announcements appeared in newspapers about his
successor, F.T. Caldwell. With no indication of the duration of
Caldwell’s appointment—Griffith had not discussed the issue with
city officials—Griffith resigned in April 1913.
Writes Stinson: "Later, some of the department’s employees were
reported to have said that the contents of the reports of [the
engineers] were worthless and unreliable as to the statements
contained in them."
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