In the late 19th century, due to technical limitations of the earliest phone lines, every telephone required its own physical line strung between a house or business.

The somewhat quixotic result of so many individual lines was the construction of elaborate and unsightly towers that carried hundreds to thousands of phone lines through the air.

In Stockholm, Sweden, the central telephone exchange was the Telefontornet, a giant tower designed around 1890 that connected some 5,000 lines which sprawled in every direction across the city. Unsurprisingly, the network was extremely vulnerable to the elements and everything that could go wrong did up until 1913 when Telefontornet was completely decommissioned in favor of much simpler technology.

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