Malheur Home Telephone Co. wants to raise four-party rate 75 cents, to $3.50

The phone company serving Nyssa, Ontario and Vale asked the state Public Utilities Commission to raise rates as much as 47 percent for residences and businesses across the county, The Argus-Observer reported on Oct. 13, 1952.

The cheapest rate offered, for a four-party personal line, would go from $2.75 a month to $3.50 in the towns. A rural residence line would climb to $3.75 a month, from $3.00.

Single party residential lines would be $5.50 a month in Ontario, up from $4.25. In Nyssa and Vale the single party rate would be 25 cents cheaper, at $5.25 up from $4.00.

Business rates would climb to $9.75 a month in Ontario, from $6.75. In the rest of the county the individual business rate would be $7.75 up from $5.25.

H.F. “Hap” Logue, the executive officer of the local chamber, said his group had formed a committee to study the increases which it might decide to oppose at a PUC hearing in Ontario later in the month.