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 ARKANSAS TELEPHONE CENTRAL OFFICE'S

 

Central offices of Arkansas

ARKADELPHIA

 

 

 Old Exchanges: MAin (Like all rural office)

 

BEEBE

 

 Beebe is a small suburb of Little Rock northeast of the city.

BENTON

 

It is in the aluminum part of Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from Bauxite, AR and home to Alcoa Aluminum.  AT&T Local Field Operations keeps its Central Offices very neat and clean in this state, they make good neighbors.  This office never had an Exchange associated with it.  It is one of 3 offices which serve Benton, a city of 21,000.

 

BENTONVILLE "BELLA VISTA"

 

 Houses a remote switch hosted in the Bentonville 273 CO.  Bella Vista started life as a golf centric retirement community about 25 years ago but has become an upscale suburb for mid-level execs who work for Walmart or one of its many suppliers.

BLYTHEVILLE

 

 This town grew up around an Air Force base closed in the 1990s.

Old Exchange: POplar

BRINKLEY

 

 Old Exchanges: REpublic

CONWAY

 

 Old Exchanges: FAirview

FAYETTEVILLE

 

 This office was the first to install a Western Electric No1A ESS "HILO" switch.  The HILO feature allowed one processor to control 2 parts of the switch, one a Class 5 local switch, the other a Class 4 local Tandem.  Ultimately, Southwestern Bell installed HILO switches in Jonesboro and Pine Bluff in the state.  They also installed 5 more in Kansas.

This is one of the few offices which had the new SBC logo displayed on it.  And, as you can see the addition of the 2nd and 3rd floors for the HILO and a large toll room is not architecturally consistent with the original building.

Old Exchanges: HIllcrest

 

FORREST CITY

 

 The town is named after the infamous Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest who, after the civil war, founded the KKK.  It is the county seat for St. Francis county.  The office is home to a DMS100 switch.

FORT SMITH "GLADSTONE"

 

  

FORT SMITH "MAIN"

 

  

HICKORY RIDGE

 

 This building only dates to 1997.  On March 1, 1997 a tornado tore the roof off of the old building and knocked down one wall.  That was a frame structure with a brick veneer, so SBC put a much more robust structure in its place.  It is home to a Nortel DMS remote hosted from Jonesboro, Arkansas.

 

HINDSVILLE

 

 Rural central offices in Arkansas for SBC all contain the "MA" rather than the actual NNX characters.  The local customers originally called the operator who answered them with "Main operator, number please."  MA stands fro MAin.  This DMS remote is hosted by Springdale, AR.



JOINER

 Office located smack dab in the middle of East Arkansas cotton farming country. 

JONESBORO

 

 This is SBC's Jonesboro, Arkansas central office.  It was not originally built to withstand a seismic event.  When it was discovered that it is in danger of seismic damage in the event of a New Madrid fault tremor it was heavily reinforced.  The basement got new 15 inch thick walls as well as framing wall to wall inside in each equipment room.

At the left is the original office.  The red brick addition housed the No.1 ESS HILO switch installed there in 1982.  The radio tower was removed from this office a few years ago.

LITTLE ROCK "CAPITOL"

 

 Once served the capitol, now it serves the west side of Little Rock, the capitol is served by the FRanklin office.  Its a fast growing office which sprouted a second floor in 2002 and is one of few in the state which displays the SBC logo. 

Old Exchange: CApitol

LITTLE ROCK "FERNDALE"

 

 Old Exchange: VAn Dyke

LITTLE ROCK "FRANKLIN"

 

 This is a building shared with AT&T long lines.  It is the main office for downtown Little Rock.  There are still a few working radio systems in this office in 2005.  When we installed the No. 1A ESS processor here in 1983 I thought it would last for 30 years.  It was torn out in 1999. 

Old Exchanges: FRanklin

Note: Will add more tandem info soon.

LITTLE ROCK "LOCUST"

 

 When SBC still did its own installation work this office was one of the installation centers.

Old Exchanges: LOcust

LITTLE ROCK "MOHAWK"

 

 This office serves the University of Arkansas Little Rock and the Pulaski Heights area.

Old Exchanges: MOhawk

LITTLE ROCK "PINNACLE"

 

 This serves what was once a rural area near Pinnacle Mountain.

LITTLE ROCK "SKYLINE"

 

 This office is beautifully landscaped and is located in an area which the city of North Little Rock has done an incredible job of keeping vibrant and attractive.

Old Exchange: SKyline

LITTLE ROCK "SOUTHWEST"

 

 This is commonly called the Little Rock 455 office.  Directly behind it is a Cingular MTSO office  It can be seen behind the vehicle on the right side of the picture.  Until about 1995 this was a very rural area.  The metropolitan sprawl of Little Rock has turned it into a suburban office.  This is textbook example of the modern central office, no windows, no vulnerable doors, it's almost impervious to Mother Nature.

LONOKE

 

 Old Exchanges: ORange

MALVERN

 

Malvern is where you end up if you get off I-30 to go to Hot Springs but turn left instead of right.  It sits back from the main street in a residential area.  It never had an Exchange associated with it either.

 

 

NEWPORT

 

 Home to a No. 5 ESS switch

Old Exchanges: JAckson

OSCEOLA

 

 The office got a building addition in the early 1980s when a No.2ESS lucent switch was installed.  It has since been displaced by a remote switch hosted in Blytheville.

Old Exchanges: LOcust

PINE BLUFF "JEFFERSON"

 

 This office was one of the No.1A ESS "HILO" offices installed in the early 1980s.  The "HILO" feature added a significant trunking capability to the No.1A ESS and in Arkansas 3 were installed, Fayetteville, Jonesboro and Pine Bluff.  This one was installed in the 2nd floor addition.  The architecture is classic mid-60s telephone central office.

Old Exchanges: JEfferson

PINE BLUFF "WATSON CHAPEL"

 

 Serves the western side of the town of Pine Bluff. Pine Bluff’s local sports hero is Tori Hunter the American league outfielder.

 

ROGERS

 

 Rogers is where Daisy BB guns are made.  This particular office also has a large parking lot and a covered area for company trucks.  The big recreation area “ Beaver Lake ”  is also located here.

SEARCY

 

 The town is pronounced “Sursee”.  Walmart has a large distribution center in this city.

SPRINGDALE

 

 Springdale , Fayetteville , Rogers , Bentonville and Springdale Tontitown are the 5 Central Offices where the first SONET OC48 UPSR in Southwestern Bell was installed in 1993.  UPSR is an acronym for Unidirectional Path Switched Ring.  Springdale is also the headquarters for Tyson Foods & J B Hunt trucking.

Old Exchanges: PLaza

WALNUT RIDGE

 

 This office serves the 2 small towns of Walnut Ridge and Hoxie in Northeast Arkansas.

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