On December 5, 1911, the Wabash Mutual Telephone Company was incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio. This was also the year that Wabash began providing service beyond just local calls. Customers were now able to make calls to the big city of Celina. A phone call to there was considered long distance and cost 10 cents. The monthly assessment per subscriber was 40 cents.

On March 19, 1912 , the Wabash Mutual Telephone Company purchased an area of land known as the Bobenmoeyer property. This is where the main office is located today. The company expanded it's service on March 5, 1924, by offering long distance service to Coldwater and Ft. Recovery Ohio, as well as, Bryant and New Corydon, Indiana. On December 29th, of the same year, the board purchased a new Kelloge switch board for $483.78 to handle the growth of new subscribers.

A meeting, concerning the purchase of the Wabash Mutual Telephone Company by the Celina Telephone Company, was held on December 17, 1927. On December 5, 1928, subscribers took a vote on whether to sell the company to Celina. The Subscribers opposed the sale 112 to 8.

Due to an increase in the number of subscribers over the years, an operator and lineman were employed in 1933 to maintain the lines and provide 24 hour service. The period from 9:00pm to 6:00am, however, was designated for emergency calls only.

Wabash Mutual Telephone
(Click to enlarge)

In January 1951, a special meeting of the subscribers was held to discuss the rebuilding of lines that were deteriorating. A fee of $13.00 was charged to each subscriber to help pay for the reconstruction. In March of 1960, the Wabash Mutual Telephone company purchased a dial station so that subscribers could have the more modern rotary phones installed. These phones took the place of the outdated crank phones, which had been in use since the company's inception.

By 1967, Wabash Mutual Telephone Company had installed cable half way to Celina to meet GTE's cable. This allowed Wabash to offer toll free service to Celina. On April 6, 1974, Wabash offered extended area service. This meant that subscribers could now also call Ft. Recovery and Coldwater without being charged a toll.

From 1980 to 1985, underground cable was installed to provide one party service to all subscribers. In 1986, 32.5 miles of underground cable was installed by a contractor to complete the 81 square mile area served by the Wabash Mutual Telephone Company. Also in 1986, a new digital switching system was completed. This provided Wabash subscribers with the county's first 911 service.

In 1993 the Wabash Mutual Telephone Company joined Com Net, a consortium of 19 Ohio based independent telephone companies, to provide SS7 service. This allowed Wabash to be one of the first in the area to provide caller I.D. and other "intelligent network" services. In 1994 the company joined with bright.net to offer access to the Internet. These two services were turned on during the second quarter of 1995.

Wabash plans to continue to keep up with all the technological advances in the telephone industry and provide both their telephone and bright.net customers with the best service available.