Bell Canada Alexander Graham Bell, providing stovepipe wire with which Bell conducted his early telephone experiments from his father's home in Tutelo Heights, Ontario, and also building some 2,398 telephones to Bell's specifications for the Canadian market until James Cowherd's untimely death from tuberculosis in 1881. With a government-granted monopoly on Canadian long-distance telephone service, The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was serving 237,000 subscribers by 1914. Since its early years The Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Ltd. had been known colloquially as "The Bell" or "Bell Telephone". On March 7, 1968, Canadian federal legislation renamed The Bell Telephone Company of Canada,
Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building the lower floors. On the building's facade representations of rotary telephones are carved into the limestone frieze. Continuing the communication motif, still other reliefs depict a runner, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and nautical flag signals. Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building is a registered historic building in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was designed by Harry Hake, and listed in the National Register on April 20, 1995. The Cincinnati Bell Company opened its building at Seventh and Elm streets in 1931. At that time, it housed the world's longest straight switchboard, with 88 operator positions.