This advertisement is from 1960. The text of the ad is reprinted below:
"Hello Central" said goodbye here
In 1892, an Independent telephone company installed the nation’s first automatic telephone exchange at LaPorte, Indiana. Keeping pace through the years, this home town for the dial system enjoys facilities today as as modern as any in America.
It was the afternoon of November 3, 1892. At LaPorte’s railroad station, a brass band greeting awaited 70 distinguished visitors.
Their mission: a public demonstration of the first automatic telephone exchange for which the independently owned and managed LaPorte Telephone Company was providing the stage.
Success marked the event, and attention quickly centered on the invention which enabled a mere curiosity to become the world's principal means of communication.
There were few subscribers of record in LaPorte at the time, only 297 by 1900. But today, 12,000 ringing telephones echo the bustling business activity of this city within an hour’s drive of Chicago.
LaPorte is representative of the 11,000 growing communities served by more than 3,600 Independents. They range in size from companies with a few hundred customers to those serving hundreds of thousands. They’re adding another $1,000,000 a day to their $3,500,000,000 worth of facilities... to help you reach all America.
For a revealing picture of this vital, vigorous industry, write today for "An American Story," Dept. 55, U. S. Independent Telephone Association, Pennsylvania Building, Washington 4, D. C.
Business on a 24-hour-a-day basis -- one of many new aids provided by independent telephone companies throughout America is this automatic telephone answering device. It records the calls which come in while you’re out, plays them back when you return.
INDEPENDENT TELEPHONE COMPANIES ARE INVESTING IN YOUR FUTURE--THROUGH BETTER COMMUNICATIONS