Its pioneer days were over.

There was no more ridicule and incredulity.

Every one knew that the Bell people had whipped the Western Union, and hastened to join in the grand Te Deum of applause.
Within five months from the signing of the agreement, there had to be a reorganization; and the American Bell Telephone Company was created, with six million dollars capital.

In the following year, 1881, twelve hundred new towns and cities were marked on the telephone map, and the first dividends were paid--$178,500.

And in 1882 there came such a telephone boom that the Bell System was multiplied by two, with more than a million dollars of gross earnings.
At this point all the earliest pioneers of the telephone, except Vail, pass out of its history.