Sometime after 1867, when telegraphic services had first become available in Central Otago, a telegraph line had been connected between Teviot station, a sheep station, and the telegraph office at Roxburgh. This was a great success. However, during 1876-77, there was a nationwide demand for qualified men to operate telegraph lines. As it became harder to staff the service, it became impossible to keep the telegraphic line between the Teviot station and the Roxburgh Post Office working [1] . This is when Thomas Coop's thoughts turned to telephony. Image of early telephone (a later model than that installed by Thomas Coop). Photo: ©Al Thomas (parch-mint.com) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Thomas Coop (1838 - 1924) had been appointed Postmaster at Roxburgh in the September of 1873. You can read more about Thomas' life in Roxburgh here . Teviot station, then owned by John Cargill [2] and his son-in-law E. R. Anderson, was situated about 6 miles/10km from the Roxburgh Post Office [3][4] . While
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