Close-up detail of the switchboard's work surface, showing rows of red and orange-tipped patch cords, toggle switches, signal lights, and handwritten operator reference notes under a glass panel.

World's Largest Telephone

Maine State Museum

In the village of Bryant Pond in the small rural town of Woodstock is a giant. Once the home of the last hand-cranked telephone company in the United States, it is now home to a 14-foot-tall memorial to the days when people picked up a telephone receiver in their homes and asked a real person to connect them by hand to someone else in town.

The World’s Largest Hand-Cranked Telephone is the creation of Gil Whitman, a Bryant Pond resident who crafted everything from wrought-iron handrails to ornamental lawn sculptures. But his last big project, constructed in 2008 when he was in his 80s, is arguably the one that would have been the talk of Bryant Pond’s party lines.

Built to commemorate the Bryant Pond Telephone Company – the last hand-cranked magneto telephone system in the U.S., which stopped operating in 1983 – and the family who ran it, Whitman’s sculpture is a supersized version of a candlestick telephone, complete with an operable crank handle. It is aptly located in Bryant Pond’s Remembrance Park.

AtlasObscura : The World's Largest Telephone

Outdoor sculpture of an oversized black candlestick telephone mounted on a granite pedestal, commemorating the Bryant Pond Telephone Company, the last hand-crank magneto telephone system in the U.S., with trees and blue sky behind. — World's Largest Telephone. Photo by Larry Bonney for Atlas Obscura.

Bronze dedication plaque on the Bryant Pond telephone sculpture, crediting sculptor Gil Whitman and honoring Barbara and Elden Hathaway, owners of the Bryant Pond Telephone Company, the last hand-crank magneto telephone system in the U.S., operated from 1951 until joining the national dial system in 1981. — Plaque on the base of the telephone sculpture. Image by Larry Bonney for Atlas Abscura.

A vintage telephone operator switchboard with two hinged panels densely packed with jacks, keys, and indicators, accompanied by an operator's stool with a headset, against a gray studio background. — Bryant Pond Switchboard. Maine State Museum.

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