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The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, Old Main Building is a historic structure located in
Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1988.


History

As the number of businesses in Washington increasingly relied in telephone service,
Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, usually known as C&P Telephone, is a former d/b/a name for four Bell Operating Companies providing service to Washington, D.C., Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. Today, three of the companies ar ...
built this building as its new main exchange. Designed by architect Leon Eidlitz, it was the first of a complex of buildings the company would construct at this site. The building houses what was considered to be the largest telephone switchboard at the time. It began operations in September 1904 and served 6,000 at the beginning. The new system eliminated the multiple rings on party lines and the need for an operator to interrupt the line to determine whether a subscriber had completed a call or wanted to receive calls.


See also

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Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company Building The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company Building is a historic structure located in Downtown Washington, D.C. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. History This was the third building C&P Telephone built in downt ...
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Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company Warehouse and Repair Facility The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company Warehouse and Repair Facility is an Art Deco industrial building, located at 1111 North Capitol Street, Northeast, Washington, D.C., in the NoMa neighborhood which houses the headquarters of National P ...


References

{{National Register of Historic Places Commercial buildings completed in 1904 Telecommunications buildings on the National Register of Historic Places Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C.