History

Kentone Communications began in 1984, when St. Johns Telephone & Telegraph divested its remaining central office equipment and street hardware following its acquisition by a regional carrier. Among the assets sold at auction was a run of outdoor coin-operated kiosks installed throughout North Portland in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lisa Kenton, a central office switching engineer who had spent eleven years maintaining St. Johns Telephone & Telegraph’s electromechanical switching equipment, purchased one of these kiosks rather than see it scrapped. She had it installed on the parking strip in front of her home on N. Bayard Avenue, at the intersection later informally named N. Kentone Court by neighbors.

The phone line itself was decommissioned along with the rest of the exchange, but the kiosk’s structure — the hood, the shelf, the directory rack — remained intact and useful. Ms. Kenton began posting the weather report and a handful of community notices under the glass in 1985. What was originally a courtesy to passing neighbors grew, gradually and without much planning, into a standing information service: a bulletin board, a business directory, a bus schedule, and whatever else neighbors found useful enough to ask for.

This site was built in 1998 to mirror what was already posted at the kiosk, so that neighbors who could not walk or drive past could still check the weather or the calendar. It has not required a redesign since, as its purpose has not changed.

Kentone Communications remains privately operated and unaffiliated with any telephone company, past or present. It receives no funding beyond Ms. Kenton’s own upkeep of the kiosk.