About Us

Telephone service began in Louisburg (little St. Louis as it was called in those days) in the early 1900’s. As early as 1903, an ordinance was issued granting a franchise to the Hodges brothers to erect and maintain a telephone exchange within the city limits of Louisburg. This exchange later became known as Citizens Telephone Co. A year later, a similar ordinance was issued to Farmers Mutual Telephone Co. for the surrounding areas. In December 1909, there were 20 farm lines and 135 city lines having connections with everyone in the neighborhood for over 20 miles.

1948 brought new ownership to Citizens Telephone Co. Mr. John Kircher, previous employee of Cleveland Missouri Telephone Company, purchased and began operating Citizens Telephone Co.

John Kircher, with the help of his son Henry Kircher and son-in-law Clarence Hess, decided it was time to expand his operations in the early 1960’s. The Freeman Missouri exchange was purchased in December 1960. This consolidation marked the beginning of MoKan Dial, Inc. In June of 1964, the company purchased the Westline Missouri area, which added to the Freeman exchange. At the time of the dial service upgrade, Louisburg served 740 phone lines and Freeman-Westline served 382.

The exchanges of Rantoul and Hillsdale, both in Kansas, were purchased from C.B. Telephone Company in 1972. By the end of 1974, the outside plant in all four exchanges was buried, and customers were placed on one party lines. This same year, one-plus long distance dialing was introduced into the system. The late 1970’s brought retirement to John Kircher, with Henry Kircher and Clarence Hess becoming equal owners of Mokan Dial, Inc.

Townes Telecommunications, Inc. purchased MoKan Dial, Inc. in 1994. At the time of purchase, MoKan had 9 employees serving 3100 access lines. The Spring of 1994 also brought “Metro Calling” to the Freeman Missouri exchange. By order of the Missouri Public Service Commission, the Freeman customers would now have the option of toll free calling into the Kansas City Metropolitan area. A new prefix (816-250) was added to the Freeman exchange. Several major construction/upgrade projects were completed in 1995. The toll routes for Hillsdale and Rantoul were upgraded to Fiber Optic Cable. A complete manhole conduit system was installed in both Louisburg and Freeman exchanges.

The backbone for a Local Fiber Network in the Louisburg area began in 2000 with the installation of Fiber Optic Cable to the schools. Additional Fiber Optic Cable has been installed to support the deployment of Digital Loop Carries throughout the growth areas of Louisburg. As the demand for deregulated services increased, MoKan Dial Inc’s subsidary MoKan Communications Inc. began offering Long Distance calling to customers of MoKan Dial, Inc. In 2001 Dial-up Internet Service was added and in 2003 DSL service was made available.