As reported in the New York Times on April 18, 1999

Silver Town Stakes New Claim to Fame: No Phones

By TINA KELLEY

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SILVERTON, Wash. — At the turn of the last century, this mountain town had 300 residents, six hotels, five saloons, four general stores, a newspaper, its own band a a small local phone company. But as the "Bonanza Queen" and other silver mining claims became unprofitable, the town lost most of those amenities, including phones.

Now Silverton is year-round home to about 20 people, some defectors from the city, others who have lived in the area for decades. They enjoy waking up to the solace-giving trills of the varied thrush and the raucous trash talk of Steller’s jays.

But they never wake up to the ringing of a telephone.

In a state where technology-based industries are responsible for more than a third of total employment, no one east of the bridge over Lake 22 Creek here on the Mountain Loop Highway can get a dial tone. Silverton residents with cellular phones have to drive 15 miles toward Seattle for the nearest signal. And satellite phones are prohibitively expensive.

There are parts of the highway tucked so deeply between the mountains that even the ambulances lose radio contact and cannot call for helicopters or other backup, said Vince Henry, a local fire commissioner and owner of Mountain View Inn, about 11 miles west of Silverton. The inn’s pay phones, the closest ones to Silverton, are often too jammed with coins to work.

For the last seven decades, Federal law has called for universal telephone service, even in places like Silverton, 65 miles northeast of Seattle, that do not fall in any company’s area of responsibility. In past years, the nearest phone company would have been required to install lines out to Silverton and could have recouped the cost by raising service charges in urban areas that are cheaper to serve.

But since 1994, when phone companies in Washington were deregulated and their monopolies ended, GTE, the closest phone company that could serve Silverton, has had no incentive to lay phone lines to serve so few new customers. The company says it would cost $750,000 to extend its land lines to Silverton, which would mean a charge of $19,000 per household for phone service.

Fifty Silvertonians, including seasonal residents, met recently with a representative of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission about their concerns, but no easy answer is in sight. This month, the State Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have established a fund to provide service to remote areas.

Bob Shirley, a telecommunications analyst with the commission, has been trying to find companies to serve Silverton, but in Washington’s $3.67 billion telephone market, no company has the incentive.

"Those are a small number of folks, they’re going to be very high-cost to serve, and they’re not likely to spend all day talking to Australia," he said. He estimated that there were 300 households in the state that could not get phone service.

U.S. Cellular, a company that provides mobile cell phone service, had been interested in Silverton’s business, until it recently found that providing service was not feasible, Mr. Shirley said. He plans to talk with several other wireless companies.

In emergencies, Silverton residents rely on a police radio, kept at Denny and Diane Boyd’s house, to reach the Sheriff’s Office. But if the couple is not home, or if the radio breaks or cannot get a signal, there is no way to get help short of driving to a ranger station near the inn.

Each year, mostly in the summer, 125,000 cars drive the Mountain Loop Highway, a Federal scenic byway, to enjoy its many hiking trails and the fishing and camping along the Stillaguamish River. Too often, they need the sheriff’s radio.

"If we’re gone, everyone else is out of luck," Ms. Boyd said. The Boyds have had to answer their door at all hours, to cold, frightened or drunken strangers whose cars were not equipped for mountain roads. One group of bedraggled travelers ended up soaking their shirts in motor oil and using them as torches to find their way out of the woods.

"People don’t realize how dark it gets here," Mr. Boyd said.

Norm Frampton, 44, who retired to Silverton from a pharmaceutical company in Seattle, paid cash for his house and now spends his days volunteering and working in his garden, says he pays about $200 a month making calls from pay phones and his cellular phone.

A few driveways west, Jeffrey and Diane I. Dukes were just getting back from Seattle. It was Tuesday, their day to check E-mail. At his old office, "my computer had its own telephone line," he said. He gets by without a phone now, but his wife misses one.

"That question keeps coming up, when you go to write a check," she said: She has to explain to shop clerks that she has no phone number to write down for them.

Mr. Dukes, dressed in plaid pajamas and a hooded green bathrobe, complained that he lost several thousand dollars when one of his stocks took a nose dive and he did not know about it.

Of course, being off the grid is a selling point for some people. One nearby house, advertised for sale as a "Self-Contained Y2K Retreat," offers propane appliances and both bathroom and outhouse, for $89,000.

But the current residents are not ready to give up their fight for phone service. "If Bill Gates wants everyone in the world to be on line, Silverton should at least be able to call 911," Mr. Boyd said.