In 1905 the Kalona Mutual Switchboard Company was founded to provide organized switching services to independently operated farm lines, as well as to the town and surrounding county lines. The eight-member board of directors was comprised of four directors from Kalona and the president of each of the four farm lines. The cord board, the current technology for connecting customers, was run by an operator who was on duty 24 hours a day. Although the system may seem primitive in this age of advanced calling features and wireless communications, they had caller ID (the operator knew everyone in town and who was calling), conference calling (party lines), distinctive ringing, and call forwarding (the operators always knew how to find the doctor and veterinarian, and typically a lot of other people as well).