George Willard Coy facts for kids

George Willard Coy was a clever American inventor and businessman. He was born on November 13, 1836, in Freedom, Maine, and passed away in Revere, Massachusetts, in 1915. George Coy is famous for starting the world's first commercial telephone exchange in 1878. He also helped create the very first telephone directory.

Building the First Telephone Exchange

On January 28, 1878, something amazing happened in New_Haven,_Connecticut. The world's first commercial telephone exchange began operating! Imagine a place where telephone calls could be connected between different people. Before this, telephones could only connect two specific places.

George Coy, along with Herrick P. Frost and Walter Lewis, set up this new company. They called it the District Telephone Company of New Haven. George Coy was the one who designed and built the special equipment needed for the exchange.

How the Telephone Exchange Worked

At the start, the company had 21 customers. These customers could connect to each other using eight telephone lines. George Coy himself became the world's first telephone operator! He would manually connect calls between people. Herrick P. Frost was the first operator to be paid for this job.

Later, as more money was needed to grow the company, Walter Lewis left. Coy and Frost then sold a part of their company to an investor. This helped them get more funds. In 1882, their company became part of a larger one called the Southern New England Telephone Company.

Creating the First Telephone Directory

Just a few weeks after the telephone exchange opened, George Coy helped make another important invention. On February 21, 1878, the world's first telephone directory was published!

This first directory was very simple. It was just a single sheet of paper. It listed 50 names of the people and businesses who were connected to the new telephone exchange. George Coy and the people who invested in his telephone company worked together to create this helpful list.