18891776 Club
Hartford inventor patents a telephone that takes coins
William Gray's device gives the public phone network a way to charge for calls without an operator standing guard.
By the late 1880s telephone lines were spreading across American cities, but there was no reliable way to let a stranger use one without an attendant collecting payment by hand. On August 13, 1889, the U.S. Patent Office granted William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, Patent Number 408,709 for a "coin-controlled apparatus for telephones." The device let a caller drop in money and connect a call without a clerk present. It opened the door to telephone service anyone could pay for, on their own, standing at a machine…
