Strowger Dial Candlestick

Early Strowger dial candlestick with its unique dialing mechanism. This is the first dial telephone. The inventor, Almon Strowger, was an undertaker in Kansas City who got upset because the operators there kept putting business through to his competition. So he developed the first automated telephone switch and dial telephones. Strowger's company was later bought out by Automatic Electric.. Circa 1905.