The telephone was invented in 1874 by Alexander Graham Bell. The first Underground telephone network was installed in Caledonia Mine in 1877 for the purpose of communication between the miners underground and the surface. The phones were installed by Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard who was the Father-in-law to Alexander Graham Bell and trustee and business manager of all telephone patent rights. Gardiner was also a partner with the New England associates in coal mining and shipping operations in Cape Breton.
Now because of the Glace Bay demonstration, orders from two other mining companies in Nova Scotia were placed. The phones were installed in 1878 when Gardiner brought five more advanced phones from Boston, and leased them to the General Mining Association to be used in Sydney Mines.
The installation of five stations linked the General Mining Association's General Office with the Mine Office, Shipping Pier, Railway and the Manager's Residence.
The area covered was about four to five miles in circumference, and the communication system was considered to be the largest telephone installation in Canada at that time.
In August 1877 the New York "Globe" reported no less than five phones are now in operation in this city.
In mileage and number of stations the Sydney Mines system of 1878 appears the largest for actual business in the world up to that time.
The first telephone operator was Lillian Clarke, with the telephone office located at Thompson's Corner, then being moved to the Town Hall. The office was moved to a building and business operated by Martin MacDonald and then to a house on Fraser Avenue. When dial telephones arrived in Sydney Mines, a new modern terminal building was erected on the corner of Fraser and Stafford Avenues (well known resident Kaye LeMoine worked there for many years). This building, with the latest in modern technology, is operating automatically from the same site.