Marquette-Adams Telephone Cooperative operated the Brooks, Endeavor, Oxford and Packwaukee exchanges located in Adams and Marquette Counties of central Wisconsin. Our headquarters and largest exchange is located in Oxford, Wisconsin.

The Cooperative is bounded by the Adams and Westfield exchanges of General Telephone Company ( now known as Verizon) on the north, By Verizon's Montello exchange on the east, and by Portage, Briggsville and Wisconsin Dells on the south and west.

Sometime before 1898, Fran and Bill Bell, two brothers emigrating from Indiana, came to Oxford and installed a local telephone system. In addition, they put two rural lines into operation. The first was known as the "Schellkopf" line, the other was the "Dells" line. The brothers soon got into a disagreement over a love affair and the partnership was dissolved. Financial difficulties quickly developed. Mrs. Colonius, of Portage, stepped in to aid the foundering company. In 1898, Colonius Telephone Company changed its name to the Oxford Telephone Company. Mrs. Jason Daniels, wife of the first settler in Montello, (in 1849) was the first central operator.

A line was soon extended to Packwaukee, the central office was installed at Wilbur's Store and later the Charles Kendall Store. Lewis Grant converted the hand-cranked generator of the switchboard to a pole charge using dry cell batteries.

There were central exchanges installed at Endeavor and Brooks. The magneto boards were operated for years with faithful operators, and in 1950, the groundwork was laid for conversion to dial phones. The company, then known as Marquette-Adams Telephone Company, was reorganized in 1951. On April 24, 1951, the Marquette-Adams Telephone Cooperative, Inc. was formed. The parties that were listed in the signing of the original Article of Incorporation were Andrew J. McClyman, Harold W. Drew, Horace E Cahpman, Alfred C. Winkler, and Willard J. Ager. The General Manager at that time was Henry Janke.

A REA loan was procured in order to complete the project. The cut over to dial service was implemented in 1954. Gordon Grant became General Manger in July of 1954. The REA record for the cooperative as of 12/31/54, showed 503 access lines and four employees. Under the direction of the Board of Directors and the General Manager, Gordon Grant, another REA loan was procured in the late 1960's. By 1970 the majority of outside plant was converted from aerial to buried plant. Also, all the party lines were totally replaced with one party service. The company at this time was far ahead of its surrounding GTE (Verizon) companies who did not convert to one party service until many years later. In the mid 1970's, touch tone service and automatic number identification became available.

In 1974, a new business office was built on the corner of oxford and Ormsby Streets. The company records show that at that time, there were 1426 access lines and six employees.

In 1978, Gordon Grant retired and George Lingo became the new General Manager. The telephone industry was beginning to see rapid changes in technology. In this time period, the cooperative purchased its first computer. As time progressed, the cooperative began doing its own billing and eventually had its first network system with many more computers throughout the office. In the late 1980's, the first fiber cable was laid between the Oxford, Brooks, Endeavor, and Packwaukee offices. In 1988, the step central office was converted to a digital switch, and interlata equal access was offered to cooperative customers. Additional remotes were added at Jordan Lake and McGinnis Lake to continue to better serve their customers.

In 1994, George Lingo retired and Diana LaPointe became General Manager. The company, under the direction of the Board of Directors and the dedication of the staff, continued to plan for the future of the cooperative. In the early 1990's, the cooperative formed a partnership with two electric cooperatives and three other telephone companies to buy a DBS satellite franchise to cover the counties of Adams, Marquette, Portage, Shawano, Waupaca, Waushara and southeast Marathon. In the summer of 1994, we sold our first DBS satellite dish and the customer bas has grown beyond expectation. The company is involved in a cellular partnership, which also covers several counties. Sales and service of cellular phones is now available at the Oxford business office.

Internet service was introduced to our customers in March 1996. Shortly thereafter, we offered Internet service to the Westfield, Montello, Adams-Friendship and Arkdale areas. In 1997, the company became a long distance reseller in order to give our customers the "one stop shopping" they had been asking for.

The company continues to work on its fiber network, which will allow more enhanced services. As of December 31, 1997, we had 83 miles of fiber cable and 7 digital nodes. This year we added an additional 30 miles of fiber and 4 digital nodes. We hope to complete our network upgrade in the next two years. There is no slow time for our outside plant and office staff.

The cooperative continues its dedication to repayment of capital credits to its patrons. In 1983, we sent out our first capital credit checks for the years 1954-1958. In total, we have mailed out capital credit checks to our patrons for over $2,268,000.00. Unclaimed checks have been turned over to a fund, which in turn has been used for scholarships, computers for the area schools and other educational purposes. In 1997, through this fund, the Board of Directors made available ten $1,000.00 scholarships to local high school seniors.

The new business office was begun in the spring of 1998 and completed in September of 1998. We hope this new addition will serve our company well in the years to come. The cooperative has grown since it was formed in 1951. Presently we have almost 3900 access lines, over 900 Internet customers and 39% of our customers have Marquette-Adams long distance.