Teletype Corp.
Teletype Corporation, a printing telegraph company, was established in Little Rock, Arkansas, in June 1957. The company was a subsidiary of Western Electric, which was owned by American Telephone and Telegraph. The original home of Teletype on Third Street was opened to help secure employees for the new manufacturing plant.
The 75,000 square foot Little Rock pilot plant at the intersection of Patterson and 65th streets focused initially on the manufacture of sub-assemblies for the Model 28 Teletype machine. The company grew from an initial pool of 150 employees in September 1957. In December 1966 Teletype broke ground on a new 288,000 square foot plant at Scott Hamilton Drive and Interstate 30. Seven hundred and sixty employees occupied this new plant in 1968. The Scott Hamilton Drive plant made Model 28/35 perforators, electrical service units, and Model 30 call control bases and keyboards. In 1971 325,000 square feet of space was added to the plant. The company began manufacturing the electromechanical Model 40 in 1974. In 1976 the company began making Model 43 keyboards. In 1981 Teletype began manufacturing the "unitized" keyboard. In 1983 it introduced the System 5000 intelligent data terminal family and T300 high speed printer.
After the 1984 U.S. Justice Department breakup of AT&T, the company became AT&T Teletype Corporation. In 1985 the company introduced Starlan local area network products, the 600 family of business communications terminals, and the AT&T 6500 Multifunction Communication System. In 1987 the Teletype name disappeared from the company name, and the local plant became known as the Little Rock Works of AT&T. In 1989 four new networked computer systems made their debut. Two made in Little Rock were the AT&T 6383/33 WGS Model S and the AT&T 6386/SX WGS. Also in 1989, the plant began making the 730 Multitasking Terminal and 730X terminal.
In the 1990s, the Little Work Works continued to manufacture products, including the AT&T 6286/EL WGS, the AT&T 6386/EL WGS desktop computer, the AT&T StarServer E, the AT&T Smart Card, and several types of AT&T Smart Card Readers. Within months of the 1996 spinoff of the systems and technology parts of AT&T in a three way division of the company, the Little Rock plant, now part of Lucent Techologies, closed.
