Perry County Rural Telephone Company Boxes 65-66

This series consists of administrative and operational files, which provide documentation of the Perry County Rural Telephone Company (PCRTC) from its establishment in 1953 until its sale to L.D. Gorman in 1968.

The PCRTC was established as a result of state Board of Health standards requiring all Kentucky hospitals to have telephone service. Fund chairman O'Rear attempted to have service extended to Homeplace from Hazard by General Telephone Company. However, the company's price for extending the line to Homeplace was judged too high. From O'Rear's consultations with Homeplace assistant director, Victor Spurlock, it was proposed that local residents form a local telephone corporation, a portion of whose stock the Mountain Fund would purchase. By late 1952 Mr. Spurlock had gotten a number of local residents interested in the proposed company and on May 15, 1953, the PCRTC was incorporated. Spurlock became its president and Lula Hale was elected secretary-treasurer. Of the four hundred and five shares, at $50 a share, the Mountain Fund purchased one hundred and ninety-three.

It then fell to Spurlock to construct a working telephone system virtually from nothing. Having borrowed an additional $6,000 from the Fund and having sought and obtained advice on what equipment was needed, Spurlock slowly built up a line which was connected to the General Telephone System in November 1955. Income from the system, which at its peak comprised around one hundred and fifty installed telephones, was sufficient for the company to pay back its $6,000 debt to the Mountain Fund (at 5% interest), as well as to pay its stockholders small dividends in each year from 1954-1963.

Although the phone-company was being run with some efficiency, by the late 1960's Mountain Fund trustees had become uncomfortable with maintaining ownership in a venture making a profit, however small. General Telephone's 1965 offer of $40,000 for the system was rejected. However, by 1968 the trustees, along with Lula Hale, Victor Spurlock, and other local shareholders were more willing to sell, accepting L.D. Gorman's offer of $125 a share on December 12.