The Logansport Reporter
Logansport, Indiana
15 May, 1903

WAS INVENTOR OF
THE SWITCHBOARD
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Death of the Man Who Gave the
First Impetus to Telephones
in Indiana.
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Sold for $20,000 What Was Worth
$1,000,000
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    The death of Ezra T. Gilliland* Wednesday at his home in Westchester county, New York, closed the life of a man whose genius had a great deal to do with the remarkable development and utilization of the telephone.
    Mr. Gilliland began life as telegraph operator on the line of the Michigan Central on the Lake Shore railroad and in his boyhood days became acquainted with Edison. This developed into a friendship which lasted all through life. They were associated in many business enterprises, and in the development of the telephone and phonograph he shared honors with Mr. Edison.
    The fundamental principles of the switchboard, used by every telephone system throughout the world, is an invention of Mr. Gilliland, and the perfected transmitter is also the result of his work.
    Mr. Gilliland organized and contructed the first telephone exchange in Indianapolis, which at that time was situated in the Vance block -- at present the Indiana Trust block. That was in the ‘70s. He owned that exchange and the Indiana rights of the telephone, and he operated the Indianapolis exchange for a year or more and sold it to a syndicate for $20,000. This syndicate, within twenty-four hours, turned it into the Central Union company for $1,000,000.
    His reasons for disposing of the telephone exchange and his rights in Indiana was prompted by his love for mechanics. With the money obtained by the sale of the property he started the Gilliland Electric Manufacturing company, at Indianapolis. The business prospered and outgrew the quarters and he bought the old factory of the Indianapolis Shoe company, on Brookside avenue. He carried on the business there for three years and moved his factory to Adrian, Mich. The Adrian plant became on of the largest electrical and manufacturing houses in the United States.
    For thirty years he manufactured equipment for the Western Union, and he made practically all of the insulating pins that carry Western Union lines over the country.
    One of his latest inventions was a cigarette making machine which has a capacity of 500 cigarettes a minute. This machine was made with a view of entering into competition with other cigarette manufacturing machinery controlled by the French government. It has been adopted by the Havanna Commercial company, which has monopolized the business in Cuba.