COLUMBIANA CO. COURTHOUSE Workers hope to save wooden phone booth

A collection is being taken to try to save the fixture.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- For decades, it stood as mute witness to thousands of conversations. But no longer.
The wooden telephone booth occupying the Columbiana County Courthouse's first-floor hallway has become another casualty of modern times.
Ameritech officials earlier this week removed the booth's pay phone and have told the county the booth itself is next to go, unless the county pays $400 for the structure.
Courthouse employees were dismayed when they heard the booth may be removed.
"We almost cried," Carol Davis, a clerk in the commissioner's office, said Friday. "It's a fixture."
The booth has been in the courthouse so long even longtime employees who were asked couldn't remember when it was installed.
Raising money: Davis was so perturbed about the booth's plight that she's undertaking a fund-raising effort to gather the $400 Ameritech is seeking for it.
The telephone company explained its actions in a letter to the county that said the booth wasn't bringing in enough revenue in these days of cell phones and toll-free numbers.
"Fewer and fewer calls are paid for by depositing coins in the phone," wrote Janine Lowe, an Ameritech account manager.
Commissioners refused the company's offer to leave the phone and booth if the county paid Ameritech $50 a month.
Commissioner Jim Hoppel said the monthly fee is an expense the county can't afford.
Hoppel noted there is a bank of public phones along the sidewalk street outside the courthouse's main entrance.
"With phones outside the building, we didn't feel we should spend money to keep it," Hoppel said of the booth.
He acknowledged, however, that the outside phones "are not as ideal."
They certainly lack the character of the courthouse phone booth, which is considered part of the historic building's charm.
Long ago: Constructed of deeply colored hardwood, the booth is a reminder of times when men sported fedoras, women wore hats and gloves in public, and phone calls cost a dime.
Users who step inside the booth and slide shut its creaky folding door are illuminated by the overhead light that automatically comes on.
Above the phone is a switch for an exhaust fan that can rid the booth of cigarette smoke and make it difficult for those outside to overhear conversations.
A phone company spokesman was unavailable for comment.