Local fifth- and sixth-graders learn about the Gridley Telephone Museum during a visit. (Gridley Telephone Museum photo via Facebook) 

There’s not an iPhone in sight at the Gridley Telephone Museum. 

Vintage telephony is the star at the McLean County museum, offering a vivid look at how communications from a vanished era helped shape the Gridley area and similar small towns. 

Displays run the gamut from early 20th Century wooden wall box phones to dozens of operator-assisted wired receivers from decades past. Then there’s the authentic 1920 telephone office and a still-functioning 1946 switchboard. 

“Everything that you see here was used in the community of Gridley,” said Delores Perry, a volunteer museum tour guide. 

Volunteer tour guide Delores Perry demonstrates a still-functioning switchboard from 1946 at the Gridley Telephone Museum in McLean County. (Photo by Jack McCarthy/Chronicle Media) 

The museum’s home is a modest, single-story brick structure in downtown Gridley, a community of 1,420 residents on U.S. Route 24 halfway between interstates 55 and 39. It’s about a 25-mile drive from Bloomington-Normal, 40 miles from Peoria and 100 miles from Chicago’s western suburbs.  

Credit Gridley’s treasures to a relatively remote location, a company too small for major telephone firms to snap up, retired equipment preserved in storage and dedicated telephony collectors and company owners in Charles Hoobler and Rogers Kaufman. 

Kaufman purchased controlling interest in the privately owned Gridley Telephone Co. from Hoobler in 1970. According to museum history, Kaufman initially set up a small museum in the company basement.  

“When Mr. Kaufman purchased the phone company, he found all of these telephones (in storage),” museum volunteer Perry said. “When they had been taken out of service between 1900 and 1970, they were just stored. They weren’t burned. They weren’t pitched. 

The museum’s collection includes oak wall telephones (rear) as well as upright “candlestick” phones featuring a vertical stand with mouthpiece and handheld earphone. (Photo by Jack McCarthy/Chronicle Media)   

“Mr. Kaufman was a collector, and he had worked in the business, so he knew the value and started immediately planning to create a museum,” Perry added. “So, these are the results.” 

The museum, attached to the Gridley Public Library, opened in 2002. 

Reviewers on social media — a concept unforeseen in Gridley’s wired past — have effusively praised the museum and memorabilia. 

“(It’s) a delightful tribute to the legacy of communication technology,” wrote one online reviewer. 

 A Facebook visitor called the museum “a fabulous place (that) really shouldn’t be missed.” 

“I’m so happy that our adventures led us to this fabulous place,” wrote another Facebook visitor. “It really shouldn’t be missed.” 

It’s the only telephony museum in Illinois and one of just 27 nationwide, according to the museum’s website. The next closest are two in Michigan and another near Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

Arguably the star of Gridley’s collection — the 1920s era telephone company office and working community switchboard — can be viewed immediately upon entry.   

“When you walk in the door, what you see is a re-creation of the 1920s telephone office,” said Perry. “This is exactly what it looked like in 1920, and we have all the original office furniture from then. 

The Gridley Telephone Co.’s 1920s office is re-created in the museum using original desks, dividers and equipment. (Photo by Jack McCarthy/Chronicle Media)   

“And it remained that way up until the 1990s when they tore the (original telephone company) building down. These are oak room dividers that were refinished and placed here exactly in the same position where they would have been in the telephone office.  If you wanted to pay your bill, you would come to this table and someone would help you.” 

The nearby manual switchboard linked the town via overhead wires on telephone poles, allowing calls between neighbors and friends as well as access to medical help, police or other services. 

The switchboard still works as Perry demonstrates for visitors ranging from local fifth-grade classes to telephone history buffs.  

Perry said Gridley has had a series of telecommunication firsts and lasts. 

“We were the first community in Illinois to have buried cable,” she said. “And we were the first community to have touch tone (dialing). We were the second-to-last community in the state of Illinois to still have a switchboard.” 

The museum also claims a model of Alexander Graham Bell’s 1875 original telephone, plus a great leap forward into wireless communications as represented by an early generation Motorola cell phone. 

The museum is open from 1-4 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, and Saturdays by appointment from March through November. For information, call (309) 747-2284 or visit https://telephonemuseumofgridley.com