This page was created when the following 1930s news article was discovered in 2021.
If you have information that will clarify this event, please contact the Darrtown webmaster.
See more info about a bucket brigade.
Presumably, the call for help was manually circulated by a switchboard operator located in the L.A. Miller home - which was the location of the Darrtown Telephone Company.
At the time, the Oxford (Ohio) Fire Department was the only nearby firefighting resource available.
The location of the warehouse is unknown; however, the Wyckoff family lived in the house that contained the Wyckoff grocery.
The Wyckoff grocery became Don's Carry Out.
20 years after the 1930 fire at Wyckoff's, ...Darrtown residents were still in need of a telephone system that would provide a direct line to emergency services.
Luther's words (in the second paragraph of his letter); "we need a direct line that can be made available at all times" may have been a reference to the telephone party lines that were common to telephone service in Darrtown during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Living with a party line...
SOME HISTORY ABOUT CONTACTING EMERGENCY SERVICES IN MILFORD TOWNSHIP...
In December 1950, ...local businessman Luther McVicker sent a letter to the Ohio Department of Public Utilities about the situation. Luther wrote, "We have recently set up a plan for fire fighting equipment to be stationed in Collinsville." Luther's comment suggests that, at the midpoint of the 20th century, neither Collinsville or Darrtown had fire fighting capabilities.
A "party" line meant more than one family shared a single telephone line.
Just getting an open line to make a call was a matter of chance ... and it was possible for others to listen to your call.
As late as 1965, Somerville Elementary School shared a party line - according to Fred Lindley, who was the school principal from 1962-1965.