For much of its history, outside of the big cities, telephone service in the United States was — not to put a too fine point on it — pretty lousy. Entire books have been written about AT&T (and Southwestern Bell)’s virtual monopoly on telephone “service,” and articles bemoaning the lack of service and high prices fill newspapers and magazines through the 1980s.
This is the story of the Waco man who did something about it.
John Baylis Earle Sr. built the first cotton mill west of the Mississippi during the American Civil War and was a charter member of the organization that built the Waco Suspension Bridge Co. He built what was then the second “substantial” house in Waco (and what would later be called the “Earle-Harrison House”) at 1705 North Fifth Street. Earle died on January 30, 1869.
At his father’s death, John Baylis Earle Jr., born June 20, 1866, was only three, the youngest of four children. A fierce work ethic and his mother Emma’s support enabled John to graduate from the University of Texas School of Law as part of the 31-member class of 1890. After graduation, he worked as a law clerk, established his own practice in Waco in 1893, and even served as a Justice of the Peace for Precinct 1.
But like many enterprising young men of his age, Earle was fascinated by Alexander Graham Bell’s new-fangled invention, the telephone. That fascination, however, was tempered by an increasing frustration with the device. Bell, and especially his successor Theodore Newton Vail, spent untold millions suing and bullying potential competitors — and even more money on legislation (and legislators) that would insure the new invention’s near-monopolistic status. In towns like Waco, there were only a few of the exorbitantly costly telephones. They were prone to frequent breakdowns and nearly non-existent service. Rural Texas had virtually no phones at all.
According to Sleeper and Sanford’s “Waco Bar and Incidents of Waco History,” that’s when John Baylis Earle Jr. entered the picture, directly challenging Bell’s monopoly. In 1905, he raised enough money to found the Independent Telephone Company. An article from a Waco newspaper in April 1915 described it this way:
His progress was slow for a time, but gradually it gained impetus and his plant at Waco and in this county grew in importance and value. He was “manager” for years, and later was secretary of the company, and then came such recognition of his ability as a builder that he was able to command associates with capital who would allow greater growth, and he became president of what was the Brazos Valley Telephone and Telegraph company.
He also found time to marry Louise Madden Brown, who herself was from one of Waco’s oldest families. Louise was the sister of Dionita, later the wife of W.V. Fort, who built the Fort House.
In 1914, Earle completed the purchase of the powerful Bell’s local service, as well as several smaller telephone companies in Waco and merged them with his own. It was, one newspaper noted, “an accomplishment that many said could not be brought about.” By all accounts, local telephone service was never better — or cheaper — in Central Texas.
Earle’s business acumen and organizational ability meant that he would eventually serve as president of the Texas Independent Telephone Association, the Texas Long Distance Company, the Texas Home Telephone Company and even as vice president and director of the United States Independent Telephone Association. In each capacity, his legal background was a decided asset in facing the always litigious Vail and AT&T.
When World War I broke out, “The Handbook of Waco & McLennan County” notes that Earle was sent to Europe where he “organized a telephone company of men trained in the mechanical details of telephone operations” — a vital service in a conflict that soon devolved into massive battlefields and trench warfare.
After the war, Earle returned to Waco and served as the first director of the newly established Liberty National Bank and soon became the bank’s second president. John and Louise also remained active in various Waco civic and social organizations, including the Huaco Club, Fish Pond, the Rotary Club, the Waco Masonic Lodge and the Waco Chamber of Commerce.
While the couple lived at 2200 Morrow Avenue, Earle somehow maintained a lifelong love of agriculture, overseeing four farms in McLennan County. He was also instrumental in the creation of the McLennan County Agricultural Association.
In 1926, Earle, at age 60, was asked by the new Irish Free State to help create the country’s first automatic telephone system. The Irish Free State, founded in 1922 following the bloody three-year Irish War of Independence, was struggling with an economic boycott by England and reached out to Earle, the man who probably knew more about independent telephone service than anyone alive. Earle’s system remained the basis for the Department for Posts and Telegraph’s telephone system with the establishment of the Republic of Ireland in 1937.
Back in Waco, Earle became one of the city’s most beloved leaders. In an article from June 20, 1928 in the Waco Tribune-Herald, John arrived early at his office at Liberty National Bank only to find a huge basket of pink rosebuds at his desk with the note, “If we loved you any more, we’d have to be twins.” The arrangement had been sent by the supervisors and operators of the Texas Long Distance Telephone Company, of which Earle was president. According to the article, Earle briefly admired the flowers, said, “Oh boy! Look at ‘em!” and then went back to work.
The following year, he was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to the National Bank of Arbitration, which required several lengthy trips to the East Coast where he oversaw hearings involving national corporations and banks.
John’s death on Feb. 8, 1930 merited front page obituaries in the different Waco newspapers. According to the Tribune-Herald, Earle had been stricken with an unspecified disease in January and moved to a “local sanitarium” in the days before his passing. While John and Louise had no children of their own, they had lovingly raised the children of his brother, Norman, who had died several years earlier.
The obituary ends on a particularly tender note, saying that Earle was “marked” as an “unusual citizen, beloved for his loyalty, revered for the tenderness with which he forestalled every want and guided the careers of each family connection, honored for his whole-hearted leadership and activity in civil affairs.”
