When I arrived in Searcy Arkansas in the late 60's this house was a kindergarten. Dot Beck's Kindergarten was the name of it. Many kids seemed to attend kindergarten there, including my youngest, and they loved it.
When Dot Beck sold out it became a place for elderly care.
It is now a sleep center. Folks with sleeping disorders can get help there.
BUT.....what was it at the beginning? One of my historical oracles said it was the original Bell Telephone office!! Really? I can tell that it looks substantial but very simply constructed. It's just a rectangle with symmetrical lines. The court house says it was built in 1954 and is slightly over 1000 sq. ft.
Just two doors down Market Street is the telephone building that was in use when I moved to town. It is no longer used for that purpose. The telephone operators who started out in the above building probably moved to the one below when it was new. I remember when all the operators who worked in this newer building had to to go to Little Rock to work or retire because they were discontinuing service in Searcy. That was probably the beginning of our telephone service becoming so advanced that we all now have our private phones.
I still like the mental picture, however, of operators sitting at those little switchboards and pulling plugs to connect callers. That must be what happened in house # 1. Wish I could put that famous picture of Lilly Tomlin in her telephone operator pose on this blog but I might get sued.
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