Malheur Bell

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Malheur Home Telephone Company
Type	Subsidiary of Qwest Corporation
Founded	1895
Headquarters	Ontario, Oregon, USA
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	POTS, DSL
Website	www.malheurbell.net

Malheur Home Telephone Company, commonly known as Malheur Bell, is a rural telephone company operating in Oregon. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qwest Corporation.

It was founded in 1895 to serve Malheur County, Oregon (then located in Pacific Bell territory). A controlling interest was purchased by Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company in the 1910s, in exchange for Malheur's purchase of the toll line Rocky Mountain Bell laid to connect Malheur to the rest of the telephone network. It continued to remain an independent operation of Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph, formed when Rocky Mountain Bell merged with several other telephone companies throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

By 1984, Mountain Bell had acquired 100% of the company interest, and Malheur continued to operate independently of Mountain Bell. It was now located within Pacific Northwest Bell territory, which became a sister Bell Operating Company of Mountain Bell under US West ownership in 1984. In 1991, US West merged its operating companies into US West Communications; however, Malheur Bell remained independent of the rest of US West operations, and continued to use the Bell trademark.

In 2000, US West was acquired by Qwest, and US West Communications was renamed Qwest Corporation. Malheur Bell, however, continues to operate independently of its parent, Qwest Corporation. As AT&T Inc. purchased BellSouth, and in December 2006, and is ceasing use of the BellSouth name and logo, Malheur Bell is the last company to use the Bell trademark. Verizon still uses the logo on all of its payphones, buildings, trucks and hats. Cincinnati Bell still uses the name, but no longer uses the Saul Bass-inspired logo.

[edit] See also

• Qwest Corporation
• Qwest

[edit] External links

• Malheur Bell website