Back in 1916, Golden West was the first company to stretch telephone lines across the remote plains of western
South Dakota. The fence posts that divided farms at the time united neighbors by carrying those first telephone
wires and making communications possible.
Those early day pioneers of possibility kept things working through natural disasters, the Great Depression and
two World Wars before the start of the Rural Electrification Administration began a modernization program that's
continued for more than half a century.
Today, Golden West and its subsidiary companies provide service to over 43,000 telephone customers, 15,000
Internet subscribers, 10,000 cable television viewers, 3,000 paging customers and some 225 call center customers
making Golden West a state-wide leader in Information, Communications and Entertainment.
But from those humble beginnings as a rural telephone company to the State's largest independent
telecommunications company, Golden West's directors and employees have never lost sight of their mission:
To provide its customers with the most dependable
communications services at the lowest possible cost.
