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Glenwood Telephone Membership Corporation was established in 1957 to provide telephone service to residents around the Blue Hill area. The Company was set-up as a Cooperative and remains that way today. To be a member of the co-op you must have Glenwood’s land line telephone service. As a benefit to being a member of the co-op, customers receive dividends back each year. To date Glenwood has paid back $6,241,150.27 to our members. Today Glenwood is a full-service telecommunications provider serving residents and businesses in 12 counties across south central Nebraska. We have one subsidiary in Glenwood Telecommunications and two divisions, Glenwood Wireless and Glenwood Computers. Over the past four years our Company has doubled in size and continues to grow & flourish. We currently offer over 28 of the latest technology products and services available today. Our reputation for providing high-tech products & services, together with unmatched personal service, has allowed us to expand across central Nebraska. We continue exploring new technologies and new ways to provide Nebraskans with latest technology available. We’re from here too, which means we know what customers expect and how they should be treated. If you are currently a customer of Glenwood we thank you, if you are not give us a chance. You’ve never experienced anything like it before. High-Tech & Home-Town
Some time in the first six years following the founding of Blue Hill, the telephone company was started. On January 30th, 1897, a line was put in from the First National Bank to the home of its vice-president, C. Koehler. May 10th, 1901, Dr. Franklin had a telephone installed in his office. May 13th, 1901, a new switchboard was installed in a local drug store where a certain area of the store had been set-aside for the Telephone Company. A.J. Marshall served as the earliest manager and resigned in 1908. Robert Krause was the new manager and the company was simply called Telephone Company. In 1913 the minister of the Methodist Church, the Rev. T.C. Priestly, who was reported to be a mechanical genius, manufactured telephones and strung wire along country roads, rising only at the crossing. When the size of the operation outgrew the Rev. Priestly, the Glenwood Telephone Company was organized. The manager was Robert Marshall. One local resident detailed the installation of the rural lines, “The farmers installed the lines themselves. They just went down the road with a roll of wire, two-by-four post extenders and attached the extenders to the fence posts. When a farm was reached the farmer furnished the pole and he had a telephone.” In August of 1919, A.M. Bang took over the management of the Blue Hill office. The office at the time was located on the north side of the street in the building occupied by the former Blue Hill Café. In the years marked by depression rural dues were $.85 cents per month and no statements were mailed out. The manager would go from business to business along main street to collect. In 1947, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Lukow came from Holstein and were in charge of the switch board and the lines until 1960 when the system converted to dial. In 1963, Clive Pulver was appointed to serve as manager. The new office located in Blue Hill consisted of the old telephone office and the post office building. In 1972 the former service station was purchased and incorporated with the existing office. In 1975 a loan was received to bury the overhead lines and upgrade service to all one-party phones over the entire exchange. The entire project was completed in 1979, giving the Glenwood Telephone Membership Corporation the latest and most modern telephone service available. At that time the corporation served 2236 customers. Rates at that time were $7.50 for residential and $11.50 for business. Today, Glenwood Telephone serves approximately 2600 telephone customers, 1007 Basic Cable TV customers, 104 Digital Cable Customers, 1050 Dial-up Internet customers and 650 high-speed Internet customers. In 2004, the Company completed a system wide plant upgrade giving our customers access to the latest in telephone technology. This upgrade also gives every Glenwood customer access to DSL High Speed Internet. During the year Glenwood also added additional Wireless Internet locations, High Speed Dial-up Internet service, eStatement, bundled services and expanded our computer services.
Beginnings of the Modern
Cooperative.
Wire-Line Service Area High Speed Internet Service Area
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