The Jefferson Barracks Telephone Museum is now open.

The museum at 12 Hancock Ave. is housed in a beautifully restored 1896 building that is on the National Register of Historic Places in the 426-acre Jefferson Barracks Park.

“The museum building has undergone a total renovation over the past 12 years,” Executive Director Carol Johannes stated in a news release. “Members of the Telecom Pioneers, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) telephone company employee service organization, and their families and friends have spent over 66,500 hours in repairing and renovating the building.”

The self-guided, accessible museum has many hands-on, how-things-work displays. Assistant Director Ken Schaper stated in the release that the displays were created “to inspire an interest in engineering and history. Boy Scouts can utilize the museum to meet one of their Inventing and Engineering merit-badge requirements.”

Besides its extensive collection of telephones manufactured from the late 1880s through 2000s, the Telephone Museum also contains:

• A working Central Office Step Switch.

• Operator switchboards from the 1920s and 1960s.

• Military telephones from World War I through the Vietnam War.

• Hundreds of telephone-related equipment and tools.

• A telephone pole complete with climbing equipment.

• Hundreds of pieces of telephone-related memorabilia.

• A large variety of novelty telephones.

• A sculpture of Alexander Graham Bell and history of the invention of the telephone.

The museum is staffed by volunteers and is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Sunday.

Admission costs $5 for adults, $4 for seniors 60 years old and older and $3 for children ages 5 to 12. Children 4 years old and younger and active military members are admitted free. Groups of 10 or more each receive $1 off their admission.

Guided tours are available for groups of 10 or more and should be scheduled at least two weeks before the tour, according to the release.

For more information about the museum, call (314) 416-8004.