The Bell Telephone Building, located at 920 Olive Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, was built in 1889 for the purposes of housing the switchboard and local headquarters of the Bell Telephone Company. The building served as the main telephone exchange for St. Louis from its construction until 1926, and it is the oldest extant telephone building in St. Louis (and possibly was the first building constructed for the telephone industry in St. Louis).History and restorationThe earliest St. Louis telephone exchange was located in the National Bank Building at 417 Olive (since demolished) in 1878. By the late 1880s, space for a dedicated telephone exchange facility was needed. Groundbreaking occurred in 1889 after the acceptance of the Boston-based Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge design, and the final construction cost was $154,225. The main switchboard room was at the top of the building (then only six stories). Between 1890 and 1910 telephone use expanded dramatically, and the local St. Louis Bell Company merged with other Bell telephone companies to form Southwestern Bell by 1920. In 1923, Southwestern Bell absorbed the local St. Louis telephone competitor, Kinloch Telephone, adding to pressure on the capacity of the building. These pressures resulted in the construction of the nearby Southwestern Bell Building in St. Louis between 1923 and 1926.After Southwestern Bell vacated the building, it became used as a retail and warehouse facility for the St. Louis print company S.G. Adams Stationery, which was purchased by Comfort Printing in 1959 (but continued operating under the original name). The building became the flagship store for S.G. Adams during the 1960s through the 1980s. However, S.G. Adams refocused its business model on commercial printing in the early 1990s, closing its retail locations. The Bell Telephone Building became the final retail store of S.G. Adams, and it was closed and vacated in 1994.
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