Gardonville Cooperative Telephone Association

Gardonville provides service for four exchanges in west central Minnesota, servicing the towns of Garfield, Brandon, Evansville, Millerville, Erdahl, Leaf Valley and Melby. Its business office is located in Brandon, Minnesota. Gardonville is a member-owned cooperative that pays capital credits to its members. For more detailed information about our cooperative status, read our membership information. Gardonville is a cooperative telecommunications system that was formed in mid-1943 by a group with a desire and understanding of how important telecommunications would be in the future. Gardonville was started primarily from the formation of consolidation of small farmer-owned rural line systems, which were consolidated at that time into central offices in each town that it currently services. Each system was served by individual operators and tied together with overhead wires. The first board was comprised mostly of directors from the local creamery systems. Most of the telephone lines in operation were party lines that consisted of several customers sharing one line. In 1973, a major upgrade took place, changing the rural party line to private line service. Since that time new cable has been plowed, again updating the system, and new digital switching offices have been installed to provide the latest in technology to its members.