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A long distance telephone line ran from Houston to Gilbert's Drug Store in Conroe before Mr. Gilbert and Albert Madeley began a local telephone exchange in the store in 1899. Soon after, George Madeley purchased the exchange, naming it Conroe Communication Company. He operated the company from the Madeley Building on this site. In 1929 George Madeley sold the company to the owners of the Lufkin Telephone Exchange. At that time the Conroe exchange consisted of a six-position switchboard with two toll operators, one rural operator and three local operators. By the late 1940s the office was too small for the outdated equipment it housed. In 1954 a dial system was installed in a new exchange building. The system was reorganized into the Lufkin-Conroe Telephone Exchange, Inc., in 1985. (2000) |
