Connections Museum — Attraction in Seattle

This place was an absolute blast! If you have ever wondered how phones worked, have ever had a landline, or are just nerdy and into the way things were done prior to digital computers, you NEED to come here. It's in an old phone branch office, and the first floor is actually still a CenturyLink property; you'll need to walk around to the back, then take the elevator up to the 3rd floor, to start your tour. It's free admission, and the tours are free, but you should really donate because this place is so cool!

The equipment on display ranges from the late 1800s to nearly what's in use today (fiber optics). All kinds of equipment, from switches, generators, diesel circuit breakers and fuses (multi-thousand amp fuses!) to handsets, field equipment, and cabling, and plenty of incredibly knowledgeable staff are on hand to talk to you about it all.

What I didn't expect was that the tours would be so interactive. The first thing we did was sat down at an antique (I wouldn't say "ancient," because this one didn't require turning a crank - unlike some of the others we were able to try!) switchboard and were stepped through how to connect a phone call. We then were taken over to another display of electro-mechanical switching equipment from a company I'd never heard of, and didn't realize that AT&T/Bell kept human operators around as long as they did as sort of a marketing move - literally another company invented and marketed, successfully, a dial telephone system decades before Bell did, and it's also part of the reason that in movies and TV shows, when someone hangs up on you, you immediately get a dial tone. We then were shown a phone system that was specifically designed for the railroad companies (and had been donated by a rail worker that was tearing out old equipment; apparently it had been sitting in this guy's basement in prestine condition). After that, we made our way to a panel switch, that was originally engineered for the Seattle region and actually ran through the '60s, and is now the only panel switch to exist in the world!

The people here are all so knowledgeable, kind, and genuinely enthusiastic about this equipment. You can't not get excited about it, even if you're not into telecom or electrical engineering. Not to mention, free...

We visited the Connections Museum today and were blown away by the experience! Between the depth of the collection, the interactivity with how much is operational, the sensory experience of the mechanical operations (and the smell of vintage electronics), this place is an absolute gem.

We were treated to a tour through six generations of telecom network connection systems, starting from operator-controlled switchboards and ending with fully computer-controlled architectures. Our tour guide was excellent -- friendly, enthusiastic, wildly knowledgeable, and I find myself inspired to understand the theory behind how these systems operate. The tour itself was the perfect mix of interactivity, information, and nostalgia for these older systems (really miss how clear and low latency phone calls used to be).

I've known about the Connections Museum for a couple of years, and my biggest disappointment was how long it took me to...

If I could give this place 100 stars, I would. What these amazing volunteers have achieved in this space is nothing short of incredible. The effort and dedication it took to get their ancient phone systems working boggles the mind. If you’ve got even the remotest interest in telephones, communications, or other electronics you owe it to yourself to come see this place. As you’ll see on their website, they’ve got the only examples of some of the earliest automated telephone switching systems left on Earth, and they WORK. One of their guides walked us through the museum, and the tour was in development order of telephony starting with a manual switchboard, then Step-by-Step and Crossbar switches and tons of other tech (e.g. the teletype) along the way. Can’t say enough about this place and...