Kulleseid Telegraph Station

The oldest telecommunications building in Norway is a small, cream-painted, wooden building with a red pantile roof, at Kulleseid in the centre of Bomlo, one of the larger islands in the archipelago south of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. The building was constructed in 1857, only two years after the formation of the state telecommunications service, then called the Statstelegrafen. It originally served as a seasonal telegraph station, used principally while herring fishing was in progress in nearby waters. In 1890 it was adapted as a telephone exchange for the locality, and served that purpose until an automatic dialling system was installed in 1974. The building was restored in 1997 and is a branch of the Norwegian Telecommunications Museum.