In 1957 one of the local residents, Willis Yoder, was on his way to Athabasca when he saw a work crew tearing down the telegraph line. A light bulb went off in his head and he talked them into holding off their demolition for a while. They agreed and he raced around to the neighbors to see if there was interest in purchasing the line. They formed the Smith Rural Mutual Telephone Company and bought the line for $1.00. They were also able to buy another section of line from Kinuso for another $1.00.
It took a lot of community cooperation but they soon had 15 households on one this one telephone line. Party lines were the norm in the early days of telephones and it was no different here, other than there were a lot more families using the same line. Each had their distinctive ring and knew when the phone was for them. However, if one person was using the phone then no one else could. As the line was restricted to the 15 families, and they could only call each other they soon came up with a plan.
If you wanted to use the phone and it was in use you simply said “Is the line in use?” If the parties that were using it had been on for 5 minutes they hung up. If no one came on to ask if the line was in use then you could talk as long as you wanted.
Soon AGT had a phone installed in Smith. If you need to make a long distance call you went to the Old Smith Hotel lobby where the phone was located. Later AGT installed more lines into Smith and the Mutual Line was connected into theirs.
Betty Barthel was the first operator and the original ‘phone central’ was in the house right across the street from the current fire hall. Soon it was arranged that if any long distance calls came through Betty would say “Long Distance Please” and whoever was talking would hang up.
Without a doubt, with community cooperation and good old fashioned neighborliness, Smith probably had the best phone service around.