The first known telephone line in Manchester was established in July 1883 between Burr and Manley's store at Manchester Depot and the Kent and Root Marble Company in South Dorset. This was extended the following year to include the railroad station agent's office and Thayer's Hotel at Factory Point. In November 1887 a line connecting several dwelling houses in Dorset was extended to Manchester Depot. Telephone wires from Louis Dufresne's house in East Manchester to the Dufresne lumber job near Bourn Pond were up about 1895. Eber L. Taylor of Manchester Depot recorded the setting of phone poles in East Dorset and Barnumville in his diary for 1906. These must have been for local calls strictly, as in May 1900 the ``only long distance telephone'' in town was transferred from C. B. Carleton's to Young's shoe store.

A small single switchboard was installed in the Village over Woodcock's hardware store (later E. H. Hemenway's). George Woodcock was manager and troubleshooter; Elizabeth Way was the first operator; and a night operator was also employed. Anyone fortunate enough to have one of those early phones advertised the fact along with the telephone number in the Manchester Journal.

In 1918 the New England Telephone Company began erecting a building to house its operations on the corner of U. S. Rte. 7 and what is now Memorial Avenue at Manchester Center. Service running through Barnumville and to Bennington County towns east of the mountains was in the hands of the ``Gleason Telephone Company'' in 1925, but major supervision of telephone lines in Manchester was with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, which eventually gained all control. More aerial and underground equipment was installed as well as office improvements to take care of the expanding business.