NorCal Town Gets Phone Lines For First Time

IOWA HILL, Calif. (CBS13) -- Nearly 130 years after the telephone was invented, a small Placer County community is finally getting their first phone lines installed.

To get to the old mining town of Iowa Hill, population 200, you have to take a one lane road off Interstate 80 for about six miles just south of Colfax.

Not much has changed since the town was founded in the 1850s, and the town's only business -- a restaurant, bar, grocery store and post office all in one -- still relies on a generator for power.

The town requested a $2.5 million federal grant 10 years ago, and the towers and underground lines are now in place, giving the town the simple luxury of a land-line phone.

So far, 54 people have signed up for phone service in Iowa Hill.