About

ABOUT
Woodstock Communications has been connecting families and rural communities in southwest Minnesota for more than 70 years. We are an independently owned telecommunications company that takes pride in offering affordable service along with all of the modern, high-tech features you’ve come to expect. Our dedicated employees go the extra mile when it comes to customer service, a feature where most large corporations fall short. From installing the state’s first buried exchange in 1959 in the community of Ruthton, building the area’s only fiber-to-home network, and providing high-speed wireless internet to the previously under-served Lakes Region, Woodstock Communications continues to be an industry leader in cutting-edge telecommunications service. New switching, routing and wireless technology has always been at the forefront of Woodstock Communications advances and it will continue to be well into the future.

HISTORY
The first telephone lines in the area were setup by Woodstock Farmers Mutual in the early 1910s. At the time, each farmer had to pay $25 and provide two days of labor to join, as well as furnish a team and wagon to haul the necessary poles. The switchboard for Woodstock’s lines was operated on an almost-volunteer basis over roughly the next 40 years, usually out of someone’s home or business. By the late 1940s, 100 lines were connected to the system.Under the leadership of Bernard Knuth, plans to make the community of Woodstock a fully-automated dial exchange were put into motion in 1948. The considerable feat was accomplished in 1954 with the help of a REA (Rural Electrification Administration) grant. Knuth said the state’s Telephone Association noted that, “if Woodstock — the smallest company in Minnesota with a switchboard — could do this, in 10 years time, all phones in Minnesota would be dial.” The community of Garvin joined Woodstock Communications’ automated system in 1957, followed by the cities of Ruthton in 1959 and Holland and Russell in 1962. Ruthton, notably, was the first exchange in the state to be built completely underground. Now in the 21st century, Woodstock Communications’ is still at the forefront of telecommunication technology by building the area’s only fiber broadband network and a wireless service that reaches homes that were once unable to access high speed internet.