Brief History of XIT Rural Telephone 1951 - 1987
by Ruby Smith
The Northwest Panhandle of Texas is served by one rural telephone cooperative, the XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc. headquartered in Dalhart, Texas. Organized and chartered in 1951 as the XIT Telephone Cooperative, Inc., the Rural Electrification Administration required the name to be changed to the XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc. The Charter was amended in January, 1952 to show this corporate change.
Asa Willis, R.C. Buckles, H.L. McCleskey, John Bookout, Carl Kuper and others were among those farmers and ranchers devoting many hours and trips to Washington, D.C. to secure approval of a REA 35-year, 2% loan to serve members in Dallam, Hartley, Sherman and Moore Counties with telephone service in the Texas Panhandle.
After securing the required $5 membership fee and a $45 equity fee, the Area Coverage Survey by the H.N. Roberts Engineering Company showed feasibility to serve the rural areas of Dallam, Hartley, and Sherman Counties. Moore County was excluded from the area to be served at that time because REA rejected the feasibility of servicing this area.
In 1952, the “A” Loan was secured from REA to provide telephone service to the Dallam and Hartley County areas. The existing Texline Telephone Company was purchased from J.T. (Tommy) Rickets for $300 per station. Toll operator service was centered in Clayton, New Mexico (10 miles from Texline, Texas), a Mountain States Bell Telephone Company. At the time, Mr. Ricketts was offering dial service to the Texline subscribers through a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) he had purchased from an army base as surplus material.
With this acquisition, the XIT Cooperative was one of the first cooperatives to actually begin providing rural telephone service to members in the West Texas area.
In September, 1953, new Stromberg-Carlson XY central office switching equipment was cutover in the Texline Exchange with new dial telephone equipment installed at approximately 130 subscriber locations. The Texline Exchange building was located in a former bank building in Texline. Another former bank building with an upstairs apartment was later used to house the central office repairman stationed in Texline for a period of time.
The new Coldwater Exchange (named for the former community of Coldwater) near Dalhart, Texas, was cutover in November, 1954. Stromberg-Carlson XY switching equipment was installed in the new central office building and new dial telephones were installed at 106 subscriber locations. An Extended Area Service Agreement was made between the General Telephone Company in Dalhart and the Cooperative’s Coldwater Exchange area in August, 1957.
Copyright XIT Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc. 2005 All Rights Reserved
