Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
February, 1968

The Redding Community will be converted to a dial telphone system on February 21, according to Charles MEACHAM, area manager for the Iowa Telephone Company and Hawkeye State Telephone Company.

The first call will be made at 10 o'clock a.m. by J. W. ROBERTSON, mayor of Redding.

The dial equipment, which will service 130 subscribers, is located in a new public building directly west of the post office in Redding. With 268 lines into the office, the Redding system contains approximately 60 miles of cable and wire installed at a cost of $111,000.

Diagonal, which was converted to dial last month, and Redding are two of the few exchanges in Iowa to have complete one-party systems -- each phone in the town and country has an individual line.

Direct distance dialing will be installed in June throughout the county system and mobile telephone service, at an approximate cost of $45,000, is slated for the last of the year.

With the conversion of Redding dial telephone service will be available to residents in every town of the county system -- Diagonal, Tingley, Kellerton, Mount Ayr, Ellston, Beaconsfield, Maloy, Delphos, Shannon City and Benton.

MEACHAM expresses appreciation in behalf of his company to the Redding subscribers for their cooperation during the conversion to dial service.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, September of 2009; updated May of 2010