This company made telephones for the entire country. It wasn't the local telephone exchange. W. A. "mayorbubba" McElveen has done an article on it which can be found in the archives of his column A Look Back in The Item, http://www.theitem.com/ Mayor McElveen has also posted a picture taken about 1910 (the building was built in 1900). This was especially important to me, because that was the year my grandfather, F. Claude Manning married my grandmother Rosa Isabel Cooper of Wisacky. Charles Thomas Mason was founder of this company. His close friend, my grandfather, was also an investor an officer in the company. At it's peak the company employed 400 people in Sumter. The company closed its Sumter operations in 1920 and sold the building to the Carolina Machinery Company. Mayor Bubba was good enough to put me in touch with Rob Honeycutt in Columbia who is writing a history of the company. He supplied me with a great deal of information on my grandfather and his business ventures which help me understand how he moved from Knoxville to Sumter where my father and one uncle were born; to Chicago where an aunt was born; to South Orange, NJ where another uncle was born and finally back to Knoxville where I was born----all of this related in one way or another to the business venture known as the Sumter Telephone Mfg. Co. I'm sure Rob Honeycutt wouldn't mind if I reproduce his list of principal stock holders on this forum, for there are many Sumter names from the turn of the century---the turn before this one, that is. >From Rob Honeycutt: These are the original stockholders in the Sumter Telephone Manufacturing Company: Mrs. L. N. Ligon Sumter, S. C. 10 Shares Mr. Hugh L. McClung Knoxville, Tenn. 50 Mr. E. T. Manning Knoxville, Tenn. 50 Mr. B. J. Barnett Sumter, S. C. 10 Mr. D. M. Blanding Sumter, S. C. 2 Mr. B. R. Nash Sumter, S. C. 30 Mr. C. A. Levy Sumter, S. C. 6 Mr. R. D. Lee Sumter, S. C. 10 Mr. W. H. Thomas Washington, D. C. 50 Mr. C. G. Rowland Sumter, S. C. 12 Mr. C. T. Mason Sumter, S. C. 50 Mr. R. M. Wallace Sumter, S. C. 50 Mr. F. C. Manning Sumter, S. C. 40 Mr. W. B. Moore Yorkville, S. C. 10 Mr. P. D. Hull, Jr. Pulaski, Va. 10 Mr. W. B. Burns Sumter, S. C. 30 Mr. Neill O'Donnell Sumter, S. C. 10 Mr. J. H. Burns Sumter, S. C. 5 Mr. Dr. A. J. China Sumter, S. C. 10 Mr. R. I. Manning Sumter, S. C. 10 Mr. Christopher Adkinson Columbia, S. C. 10 Mr. E. K. Friar Sumter, S. C. 2 Mr. J. T. Thomasson Yorkville, S. C. 5 Mr. J. C. Johns Yorkville, S. C. 5 Mr. Robert Warren Sumter, S. C. 5 Mr. Stewart Mason Sumter, S. C. 2 Mr. G. Edward Haynsworth Sumter, S. C. 3 Mr. C. H. Spencer Sumter, S. C. 4 Mr. George E. Beaumont Sumter, S. C. 1 Mr. Dr. Walter Cheyne Sumter, S. C. 5 Miss Maud Solomans Sumter, S. C. 1 Miss Gussie Solomons Sumter, S. C. 1 Miss Kate Solomons Sumter, S. C. 1 I hope some of these names may be recognizable to others on this list. The E. T. Manning listed was my grandfather's brother. The R. I. Manning was then state senator and later governor. (no relation)----Bob Manning