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They were spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you."
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In July of 1877, the Bell Telephone Company was formed by Gardiner Hubbard.
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Although Western Union refused the offer of Hubbard to buy all the rights to the patents in 1876, they now realized their tremendous mistake and in December of 1877, using Elisha Gray's patents set up the American Speaking Telephone Company.
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Theodore Vail's roots hail in telegraphy. His father, Alfred, was Samuel F. B. Morse's closest technical collaborator and was on the end of telegraph line in 1844 when Morse signaled those famous words via telegraph "What hath God wrought."
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The first operators were boys, who turned out to be impatient and rude when dealing with phone customers. Their rudeness made them extinct within only a few years, replaced by females who were, "calm and gracious." The 1960s saw the return of male operators.
