It did- establishing three exchanges in that area. After being unable to receive the service they needed, the organizers finally asked Eastex to absorb them. In 1954, the people in the rural area around Livingston, 100 miles south of Henderson, were trying to obtain telephone service. (The owner decided to sell because of illness.) Other systems wanted the modern little exchange that was serving 351 subscribers, but the owner decided in favor of Eastex because he wanted to make certain that his rural people would get major consideration for service. Waskom, a dial exchange, was acquired by Eastex in 1956 after a long period of negotiation. Eastex also built Oak Hill, the third exchange, from the ground up. When the purchase finally went through, Eastex split the Elysian Fields exchange area into two exchanges, thus making the exchange of DeBerry. Negotiations for the Elysian Fields exchange continued over a period of two years because REA and the owner could not agree on the value of the system and the Cooperative had no funds available to bridge the gap in the acquisition cost. (Minden's other stations had been wiped out in an ice storm the year before Eastex took over.) These three exchanges were cutover to dial in December 1953 with 231 main stations. Minden had only one station located at the switchboard in the post office. Enterprise, Pine Hill and Minden were all magneto. On December 27, 1952, the Laneville and Goodsprings Exchanges were put into operation with 204 subscribers.
On December 10, 1951, the permanent headquarters of the Cooperative was established in Henderson (this being the trade center for rural Rusk County).
#EASTEX TELEPHONE TRIAL#
Since there was no telephone cooperative in existence, there was no pattern to follow and since this was also a new venture for rural electrification, there were no experienced men with REA to guide us so our only means of survival was by trial and error. There were only fourteen (14) people present at the organizational meeting and seven (7) of them were selected to serve on the Board of Directors. This charter was one of the first granted. Later that month, a Charter was granted to THE EASTEX TELEPHONE COOPERATIVE, INC. After several months of hard work, the loan was granted by Rural Electrification Administration (REA) and on June 2, 1950, an organizational meeting was held. In January 1950, work was started toward the establishing of a cooperative in Rusk County. In November 1949, Congress passed an Amendment to the Rural Electrification Act providing that loans could be made to existing telephone companies and newly established telephone cooperatives. Several companies had been contacted and they all gave the same story, "It's just not feasible." In the late 1940's, the residents of rural Rusk County and adjoining counties were unable to obtain telephone service from any existing telephone company.
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