The Dane County Telephone Company, Madison, Wisconsin, was one of many independent telephone companies which developed after the Bell patents expired in 1894. Although information upon the founding of the Company is ambiguous, it is clear that the Madison exchange began with the acquisition of the Standard Telephone and Electric Company franchise in 1895 by Philip L. Spooner and B. B. Clarke. Clarke was a newcomer to Madison, but he had risen rapidly through the publication of his successful agricultural journal, The Thresherman. Spooner was a former mayor of Madison (1882) and brother of Senator John C. Spooner. These men joined with Samuel A. Harper, law partner and political advisor to Robert La Follette, Sr., to form the Dane County Telephone Company. Apparently Spooner and Clarke remained as heads of the equipment manufacturing company, while Harper was named president of the exchange. Clarke also served as vice-president of the exchange, thus linking the management of the two companies. In August, 1895, the Dane County Telephone Company secured a franchise from the Madison City Council and incorporation was completed in December with capital assets of $30,000. This capitalization was increased to $100,000 in 1897 and to $150,000 in 1903.
Because the Dane County Telephone Company afforded more economical service than its local competitor in the Wisconsin (Bell) Telephone Company System, the number of subscribers grew rapidly from 700 in 1896 to 950 in 1899 and 2700 in 1908. In addition the Company expanded its services to offer toll connections to other communities in the county and state.
After Harper's death in 1897, the Company was headed by Jefferson Crawford Harper. The records indicate that he was extremely active in organizing the independent companies in Wisconsin into an association which would permit them to offer long distance service and which would protect them against any aggressive action from the Wisconsin Telephone Company.
In 1908 the passage of the Public Utilities Regulatory Act ended the need for the price-controlling competition of independent companies and in October 31 of that year, still apparently in healthy financial condition, the stock of the Dane County Telephone Company was purchased by the Wisconsin Telephone Company.
The origins of the Dane County Telephone Company are interesting not only as an example of entrepreneurial vision, but also because they indicate the early opposition of the La Follette reform coalition to monopoly in general and in particular to the Payne-Pfister interests which controlled the Wisconsin Telephone Company. At the same time that the Dane County Telephone Company was established, the La Follette Progressives were engaged in a struggle with these same men to gain control of Wisconsin politics.
