HISTORY OF ITS TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC.

"Call Waiting", one of the many features offered by today's state-of-the-art ITS Telecommunications Systems, Inc. had an entirely different meaning back in the earl l930s.

Instead of a sophisticated digital system to expedite service, call waiting meant killing time while another person used the limited telephone facilities in lndiantown.

That's the recollection of J. R. DePriest. a retired chief engineer for the CSX Railroad who was sent to the western Martin County community shortly after the repeal of prohibition to supervise installation of automatic railroad equipment.

The community's small telephone company was owned and operated then by the Indiantown Development Company which, in turn, was owned by what was then known as the Seaboard Airline Railroad. Telephone service originated in the railroad station where the development company also had a generating plant that supplied electricity to the town's 300-400 residents and businesses.

DePriest recalls that the electric power would be shut off around 1 p.m. each evening after the plant operator flicked the switch a couple of times to warn users the lights were going out. "That was the signal to light the candles and kerosene lamp's" recalls DePriest.

The blackout did not affect the telephone service, however, and neighbors could still sit up and chat, provided they could get one of the three lines available.

Some time in the mid-30s, the Indiantown Development Company completed an agreement with the inter-county Telephone Company in Fort Myers to operate the phone service. An advantage of the agreement to operate the phone service for lndiantown residents was that, through a leased Western Union line to Sebring, they could talk to other points in Florida, even out of state points.

By the late 1930s, Indiantown had eight or ten phones. The railroad, of course, had one, as did a plant that had been built to package and ship vegetables then grown in abundance in the rich fields surrounding Indiantown. A third phone was located in the Seminole Inn, a hotel built in 1927 by S. Davies Warfield, a wealthy Baltimore financier and chairman of the Seaboard Railroad, who was building a railroad from Central Florida to Palm Beach, and envisioned lndiantown as its southern terminus and headquarters.

Garfield, whose niece, Wallis, later married the Duke of Windsor after he abdicated the English throne, died before his railroad dreams could be realized, a circumstance that undoubtedly adversely affected the growth of Indiantown and its fledgling telephone Company.

Indiantown telephone history is fuzzy from the late l930s through the World War II years and into the early 1950s. Records, if kept at all, no longer exist, and early users of the system have either died or moved away. During World War II, expansion of telephone facilities was limited due to shortages of materials and manpower. After the war, Inter-County telephone Company, which had the maintenance contract and was required to expand the system as demand for service grew, began to improve facilities. In order to meet the increased demand, a so-line automatic switchboard was installed in a room off the lobby of the Seminole inn.

In the early 1950s, Yvonne R. Famel, a West Palm Beach widow, purchased Bowers Grove, a sprawling citrus farm founded in the late 1880s by Joe Bowers who, with Francis Marion Platt, pioneered what is now lndiantown's multi-million dollar citrus industry. Mrs. Famel planned to turn the grove into a fishing camp for her daughter, since it was located on the cross-state canal, the Okeechobee Waterway.

Shortly after her purchase of Bowers Grove, Mrs. Famel learned that the Indiantown Development Corporation could be purchased from stockholders who had bought it from Seaboard. Coming to terms with the stockholders, Mrs. Famel became the owner of the Seminole Inn, a small water system, considerable acreage surrounding Indiantown and the still-tiny telephone company.

Around 1 952, Mrs. Famel, aided by northern financial and legal advisors, formed the Indiantown Company, which included the telephone and water companies among its assets, and laid plans to modernize the water and telephone companies and install a modern sewage collection system and treatment plant.

Soon after the acquisition, Mrs. Famel hired a Miami engineering company to develop the new water and sewer system, an industrial park, a residential area called lndiantown Park, and a marina on the banks of the St. Lucie Canal, which flows through Indiantown and is part of the Okeechobee Waterway, the only waterway connecting the State's east and west coasts.

Mrs. Famel, working with a developer, also saw to the construction of several fine homes along what is still called Famel Boulevard, a tree-lined, four-lane road leading to the marina.

Mrs. Famel's plans to modernize the community's utilities and build housing were sparked by an announcement by giant Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company that it would build a large get engine plant nearby in Palm Beach County . She figured that Pratt & Whitney engineers, designers and others would look toward Indiantown as a pleasant water-oriented place to live.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. While some Pratt & Whitney people did settle to Indiantown, the great majority found housing closer to the plant which grew to employ 8,000 workers.

The slow rate of growth of Indiantown and the telephone company during the next few years can be summed up simply. In 1956, when the old telephone operation was acquired by the current management, the Indiantown Telephone System, Inc., there were only 54 customers. Those customers were served by a central office with a so-line switchboard in the 1 08 square-foot room in the Seminole inn. Because Public Service Commission rules required all telephone systems to have at least one public phone, a single pay station was located outside the inn.

With its new management under President Robert M. Post, Sr., the company took its first steps toward catching up with progress. Shortly after taking over company management, Post moved the central office into larger space, where a l00-line automatic switchboard was installed. He then began laying cable throughout the town's platted areas, opening up service to homes and businesses that wanted service but could not get it because facilities were not available.

On March 6, 1958, the company commissioned a Miami-based engineering and architectural firm to develop a master plan for the overall development of Indiantown Company. The plan was delivered on April 30, 1958.

The plan was a frank assessment of the company's problems and shortcomings. More importantly, it offered specific recommendations for the future, including a five-stage construction program that would ultimately cost $1.4 million.

Indiantown Telephone System went to work. Early in 1961, it moved out of the hotel into a new building on Indiantown's main street, Warfield Boulevard. Along with other new equipment there was a 200-1ine, 400-terminal switchboard. The new equipment included facilities for automatic direct dialing, but it was so advanced that it could not be made operational until Southern Bell brought its equipment in West Palm Beach up to date. Southern Bell in West Palm Beach was the point through which all long distance traffic to and from Indiantown was channeled.

At the same time, the operation agreement with the inter-county company was terminated and the Indiantown Company took over all operations, including billing and maintenance. This step included replacement of the open-wire toll connection with Avon Park, and installation of buried cable directly to West Palm Beach, vastly improving toll service.

During the next ten years, things happened in Indiantown that directly affected the telephone company. In 1962, the Indiantown Printing Company, a printer of trade magazines, came to town. Giant Minute Maid Corporation started one of Florida's largest grove operations, and Caulkins Groves followed with large citrus groves and a concentrate plant. In 1969, Florida Steel Corporation opened a large plant that employed 125 workers.

In 1971, the REA approved an $800,000 five-year program. Two- and eight-party service were discontinued, all service in the base rate area became one-party, and outlying areas got four-party service.

Underground cable was installed to serve new areas, and another submarine cable was laid under the St. Lucie Canal to better serve the southern and eastern parts of the service area.

New equipment, better service, and a larger staff marked the 1970s and by the end of the decade a second floor was needed on the office building. By that time, the company had about 1,400 subscribers and 2,500 telephones in its 306-square mile territory.

The residential windfall that was hoped for when Pratt & Whitney came to the area finally began to materialize in 1984 with the opening of lndianwood Golf and Country Club. Located a few milks from the telephone company offices, lndianwood is a 250- acre adult community of manufactured homes offering golf, tennis, swimming and other amenities. Planned for 596 single-family homes, the club experienced brisk sales and became a source of encouragement to the telephone company.

Early in 1984, new low-interest financing from REA put the company into the computer age. On July 9, 1984, President Bob Post, along with county and state officials, threw the switch that cut over a state-of-the-art 2,300-line DCO that put a multi-million dollar digital telephone system to work. The cutover party was held at the lndianwood club. In 1994, Indiantown was given the opportunity by Siemens to be the first office application for their new VISION O*N*E UP enhancement. In 1996, Indiantown took advantage of this exciting offer and upgraded the present DCO to include EWSD technology, giving us the ability to offer our customers enhanced services such as ISDN, AIN, PCS and Enhanced Centrex.

Early in 1987, Indiantown Telephone formed a partnership with Telephone Data Systems, Inc. known as Central Florida Cellular, which was selected by the FCC to build, market and operate a cellular telephone system in Martin and adjoining St. Lucie counties, two of Florida's fastest growing counties, and together one of the five fasted growing statistical areas in the United States.

As the need for communications services grew in the community, Indiantown Telephone System, Inc. changed its name to ITS Telecommunications Systems, Inc.

As access the "world-wide web'' became more important in our daily lives, ITS recognized the need to offer this service to our customers and in 2000 began offering customers dial-up internet service. In August 2002, ITSpeed came to Indiantown when the company began offering Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology to many of our customers. Today, facilities have been upgraded in most of the outlying areas making it possible to offer high-speed internet service to almost every household in our service territory.