The invention of the telephone and its improvement brought a major threat to telegraphy. The systems were compatible and the first long distance telephone call in Canada was made over the wires of the Dominion Telegraph Company in 1876. Gradually telephone systems grew in the metropolitan centres of Canada. By the turn of the century the telephone was being used for communication between cities. Telephones were also adopted at very early dates to replace telegraph sets for many industrial applications such as communication in mines and in isolated areas where the number of messages was insufficient to pay for operators. An example of the latter situation occurred between the Dominion government telegraph office in Edmonton and the nearby mission settlement of St. Albert. In January of 1885 the telephone shown here and another identical model were installed in Edmonton and in a store at St. Albert. They replaced the telegraph sets formerly used on the line. Calls cost ten cents initially and were often made just for the novelty of listening to the voice on the other end. The telephone shown is one of a pair purchased by the Canadian government from Consolidated Telephone Construction and Maintenance Company of London, England for eighteen pounds ten shillings, specifically for use on the Edmonton to St. Albert line. Similar conversions were made in many parts of Canada.
