LAHARPE From its humble beginnings, LaHarpe Telephone Company has become one of the industrys leaders in communications technology.
Now under the guidance of Harry Lee Jr. and his family, LaHarpe Telephone has been recognized this month as the 2018 Kansas Small Business Development Center Existing Business of the Year.
A ceremony recognizing the Lees was March 13 at the State Capitol.
HARRY SR. and Violet Lee acquired LaHarpe Telephone nearly 67 years ago, not long after the family was displaced from their home in Kansas City in the Great Flood of 1951.
And much like other small-town telephone companies, its facilities were spartan. The Lees ran their telephone office out of their home.
Telephone lines were strung usually from tree to tree before the Lees erected a system of telephone poles throughout town to maintain 200-plus landlines. With the systems limitations, most customers were either on a four- or eight-party line, Harry Lee Jr. recalled.
The family took an all-hands-on-deck approach to running the phone company. Even Violet by then a grandmother served as a lineman and operator.
If troubles with the line occurred, shed often be the one to drive the route, trying to find if the wire had been damaged or knocked from its supports.
I guess I didnt look this operation over well enough before deciding to buy it, Harry Sr. told the Wichita Eagle and Beacon newspaper in 1968. Afterwards, I found all I really had was a jumble of hedge poles, some rusty wire, a wooden phone booth and a 1921 switchboard. The only thing that kept us going was the demand. Somebody was fixing to have a baby and needed a line or someone else would be sick and need another line.
It took the family 15 or so years of pouring all of the phone companys income back into the system, Harry Sr. estimated, before they turned their first profit.
Part of their success was in LaHarpes hometown atmosphere, Violet Lee told the Wichita paper.
THE FAMILY moved the telephone operations from their home in 1972, when LTC built a new office caddy-corner from their house at the intersection of Sixth and Washington streets.
But even with the newer phone lines, technical issues continued to arise. The copper wiring was prone to electrical interference, Harry Jr. noted.
Starting in 1979, the Lees replaced all of the overhead lines with buried copper, installing more than 200 miles of underground cable. The advance allowed LTC customers their own party lines.
This not only gave customers private lines, but they also realized a higher quality of service, Lee said.
