1920 - - Theodore Vail dies on April 16th. Indiana Bell Telephone is formed. Illinois Bell Telephone Company is formed. AT&T Company receives, on behalf of the Bell System, a Certificate of Merit for services to the nation during the First World War.

1921 - - April sees the opening of the first Havana-Key West deep sea cable. On July 30, the first switching machine office using Western Electric equipment is installed in Dallas. In September, the Ohio Bell Telephone Company is formed.

1922 - - Alexander Graham Bell dies at his summer home, Beinn Breagh, near Baddeck, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia on August 2nd. On August 4th, telephone service is suspended for one minute on the entire telephone system of the United States and Canada, during the funeral service for Dr. Bell.

1923 - - Bell System house flag adopted. In December, the Southern Transcontinental Long Distance Telephone Line opened for service connecting Chicago and Los Angeles through Denver, El Paso, Tucson and Phoenix.

1924 - - More than 15,000,000 telephones in use in the Bell System. On May 19th, the first transmission of pictures over telephone wires is publicly demonstrated by Bell System engineers.

1925 - - Western Electric Research Laboratories and part of the engineering department of AT&T are consolidated to form Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. Walter S. Gifford is elected president of AT&T Company.

1926 - - Charles Ezra Scribner dies on June 25th. Scribner , chief engineer at Western Electric, held more patents (441) than any man in an electrical industry. Scribner has served as vice president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, was a member of the Engineering Foundation and a trustee of the U.S. Engineering Society. On July 1st, Southern Bell Telegraph and Telephone Company is formed.

1927 - - A public demonstration of television by wire from Washington, D.C. to Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City was made on April 7th. First color photographs sent over wire from San Francisco to New York, for the New York World. And on September 26th, New Jersey Bell Telephone Company is formed.

1928 - - Graybar Electric Company sold by Western Electric Company to the employees of Graybar. On May 27th, the first 350A Community Dial Office in the Bell System is opened in Arcadia, California.

1929 - - The first telephone is installed on President Hoover's desk. Up to this time, the President talked from a booth outside his executive office. First public demonstration of television, in color, is made at Bell Laboratories in New York on June 27th.

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