Switch Board Cafe

Decent weather again today for our trip to the recycling centre and grocery store. I've always liked this little building, no surprise!  Love the rust. It used to be a telephone exchange. My mum was a switchboard operator in the Central Hotel in Glasgow and also in Kitimat when we came over here. I like to think of her working on the switchboard in this wee building, and she might have if she'd lived here back then.
I looked up a bit of the history of the building in the Salt Spring Archives website. I remember party lines! "The first telephone line was strung in 1896....The switchboard served just a five-kilometer radius. The first telephone cable to Salt Spring from Vancouver Island was laid in 1901. Ganges and Victoria were connected by telephone the following year....The telephone wires had to be patrolled on horseback for maintenance, and the service was spotty at best. The purpose-built telephone exchange on Hereford Avenue began operating in 1914, run by the Dominion Government Telegraph and Telephone Service, British Columbia Division. Up to seven households were served on one “party” line. The exchange remained at this location until 1945."
Extras: some repairs happening to the Coast Guard dock. I like the little tug boat in the second extra.