Or was it a warning to behave?
This is like the phone that got hit by lightning at Crown Hill and then a lightning ball jumped from the phone to the top of the refrigerator. It was the kind of refrigerator that had the compressor on top and it totally burned out the refrigerator.
Mom had just come out of the kitchen and saw this happen; she says she was “really good for a long time after that!”
– Becky Maxey Lorenz
(Phone at the Whipple store in Scarbro, West Virginia)
The compressor top refrigerator came out in 1927 and was the first all metal refrigerator. In 1930 only 8 percent of American homes had a refrigerator but that number had reached 44 percent by the end of the decade.
Western Electric 320 Type Telephone. Explosion proof mining phone. These phones were used in mines and had insulation that would prevent sparks from igniting gas. This end would be in the mine with a direct wire connection to the house of the superintendent.