Bell Telephone Company is established.

(Aug.) Originally the Bell Telephone Association, it is moves to a new building at 125 Milk Street in 1880.* Founded with no capital and 778 telephones in service (most of them in Greater Boston), the company is renamed company a few months later to operate service in the rest of the country. Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell’s father-in-law, is the first president. William Forbes soon succeeds him. A subsidiary company for long-distance service, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, is organized in New York in 1885, because New York laws regarding corporate capitalization were more permissive than those in Massachusetts. The original company later moves to New York as well. As part of an antitrust settlement, AT&T is forced to divest itself of its 22 “Baby Bell” system companies on January 1, 1984.