Founded in Chicago in 1901, Monarch manufactured oak magneto wall telephones and switchboards for the independent telephone market. Their wall phones featured quarter-sawn oak cases with finger-dovetailed corners and cathedral tops, hand-crank magneto signaling, and built-in writing shelves. The company relocated to Fort Dodge, Iowa around 1912, where production continued. Monarch was acquired around 1925 by American Electric Company, itself part of the Theodore Gary & Company group that controlled Automatic Electric of Chicago — ultimately becoming part of GTE.
