Charles W. Farr founded the company in the early 1890s and its success relied heavily on selling direct to small, independent farmers and localized co-ops that needed cheap, un-standardized parts to build raw lines. They cut out the middleman to keep prices low, demanding cash upfront rather than extending lines of credit. They shipped everything a person, small town, or business would need to build a functioning telephone line from scratch. Ultimately however small phone companies began realizing that if they wanted to connect to neighboring towns or larger regional networks, they needed uniform, high-quality equipment. This hurt mail-order "assemblers" like Farr, as buyers gravitated toward massive, dedicated manufacturing powerhouses like Western Electric, Kellogg Switchboard & Supply, and Stromberg-Carlson.
