Rural Valley Area Buildings and Scenes

Newspaper (1914) and Telephone (1915) Offices.

Newspaper (1914) and Telephone (1915) Offices.
Click on the picture to display a larger version, if one is available.

Pictures scanned from Peoples National Bank of Rural Valley calendar for December, 1989.

"Records of the Kittanning Telephone Company show 137 subscribers in Rural Valley in 1911. This 1915 photo shows Aliene Kirkpatrick at the switchboard of the Rural Valley office. Each subscriber had a certain combination of long and short rings and answered his phone only if his amount of rings was heard."

"About the turn of the century Rural Valley was growing and an abundance of news was available, hence the birth of the Rural Valley Advance on January 2, 1901. It remained the local weekly paper until it closed in 1942. Pictured here, about 1914, at the extreme right is Howard Owen Peters, owner, publisher and printer of The Advance. Right to left is Marilla Schrecengost Boyer, operating the platen press, Marguerite Shea and Bessie Flick Smith [sic; should be Bessie Fleck Smith] at the type cases."

Left picture - original photo owned by Mildred K. Hilliard.

Right picture - Photo owned by Rev. Dale Boyer, son of Marilla S. Boyer.