Telephone Lines P.3

Participating in the ceremonies in New York for the opening of the first transcontinental telephone line on January 25, 1915 were: (from left) John J. Carty, chief engineer of AT&T; George McAney, president of the New York Board of Aldermen; Union N. Bethell, senior vice president of AT&T; Alexander Graham Bell; Mayor John Purroy Mitchell; C. E. Yost, presdient of the Nebraska Telephone Company and dean of Bell System presidents; and Comptroller William A. Pendergast of New York. Above Bell is a photograph of Theodore N. Vail, presdient of AT&T, who participated in the ceremony from Jekyll Island, Georgia, where he was recuperating from a fall