FarmersTel.com Providing communication services to farmers

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Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative

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Alabama’s largest member-owned, operating telephone cooperative, FTC marks its beginning with its original incorporation in February 1952. Up to that time, none of Alabama’s large, investor-owned telephone companies would serve the state’s rural areas, claiming that the costs to serve these sparsely populated areas were just too high, and the returns too low. Responding to the need for reliable communications with their neighbors and the world, a handful of area residents, some of whom had played key roles in establishing Sand Mountain Electric Cooperative, joined together to begin organizing and building Farmers Telephone Cooperative.

For those seven community-minded leaders — Fred Wellborn, John B. Ryan, Lee Hancock, Boyd Jones, O.M. Johnson, L.D. Dalton, and Grady Wade — who would become the charter members of the Farmers Board of Trustees, the early going proved challenging indeed. They set out across the Sand Mountain region looking to sign up prospective cooperative members for the $45 initial membership fee — $5 down and $40 due when the cooperative was formed. Then, or now, $45 was nothing to sneeze at — in fact, $45 is more like $200 in today’s money. They also started the process of acquiring the switching and network equipment necessary to bring telephone service to rural DeKalb and Jackson counties for the first time. Throughout, these Alabama pioneers maintained a steady resolve.

Two years later, in 1954, their determination and hard work paid off, with the purchase of three privately held exchanges — in reality, they were more like tiny farmer-line switchboards — and 234 telephones. About the same time, the FTC Board successfully completed negotiations with the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in Washington, D.C. for a low-interest federal loan from the newly created REA telephone program. With federal funds, FTC could make the goal of telephone service a reality for some 750 residents across five exchanges. The following year, the co-op secured REA funding to construct 100 miles of telephone lines and to install the necessary switching equipment to connect approximately 1,000 members in the two-county area. By 1960, FTC had grown to more than 2,000 members.