Telephones began to appear in North Carolina beginning in 1879, three years after Alexander Graham Bell's new invention had first been introduced at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. On 10 March of that year, a telephone was installed in the office of B. W. Starnes, manager of Western Union's Raleigh office, and local businessmen soon came to realize the instrument's utility. On 20 Sept. 1879 the first North Carolina exchange opened in Raleigh, in the rear of the Western Union office at "Battle's Corner," the intersection of Fayetteville and Martin Streets.