“Dial Telephones Cut Over Today at Stafford C. H. — Dial telephone service came to Stafford Court House today, as an estimated 350 hand-cranked, old-model phones in the area were replaced by the Central Mutual Telephone Co.  A company spokesman said the cut-over today would change all Stafford call numbers to an ‘Oldfield’ call, connecting to Fredericksburg on a local call basis without a long-distance interchange.  ‘The old Garrisonville exchange is dead,’ he said…Hartwood area’s new telephone lines, installed by the C & P Telephone Co., have been in use on a strictly local basis for the past week.  But the newly built exchange that will connect them to Fredericksburg and other outside lines is not scheduled to be cut over until August” (Free Lance-Star, July 21, 1953).

This was followed the next day by:

“A heap of hand-cranked old model telephones was piled up in Stafford yesterday beside a new dial exchange building as the Central Mutual Telephone Co. converted the area to dial telephones.  General Manager James A. Vetters posed with one antique model estimated more than 50 years old.  A few of the old phones, he said, may be used in the Manassas area, but most of them will be junked” (Free Lance-Star, July 22, 1953).