Built as a consolidated exchange and office building for Bell Telephone in 1939, the building cost $240,000 and was constructed by Potter and Shackleford of Greenville, South Carolina, contractors. It was originally designed to accommodate two additional stories and lateral expansion, using reinforced concrete. With the opening of this new facility in Augusta in 1940, customers Augusta were able to make self-service calls for the first time. The first telephone exchange in Georgia was established in Augusta on August 1, 1879 with 78 subscribers, only three years after the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.