OORGAUM HALL AND THE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE AT OORGAUM , KGF

This is a picture of the Telephone Exchange at Oorgaum taken almost 60 years ago. The clock at the side of the building always showed the correct time. This Telephone Exchange was always busy in the good old days with all the wires humming connecting the various departments and offices in the Mines as well as the Bungalows. It is now unused and locked up like the rest of the mining offices.

In the back ground is the OORGAUM HALL.

Towards the end of the 1890’s motion pictures came into existence and it was not long before the John Taylor and Sons Company began bringing in films for screening in KGF. A separate Picture Hall was built in Oorgaum quite close to the KGF Gymkhana Club and named as the Oorgaum Hall to screen only English Movies and Documentaries once or twice a week,

The Oorgaum Hall was just a basic Hall with a large white screen and a hand operated Projector and wooden benches for seating. It was the era of Black and White Silent Pictures initially and the Silent films were replaced by the ‘Talking Pictures’ only in the late 1920s.

Films of various genres were screened at the Oorgaum Hall. Westerns and Cowboy Films, Historical Extravaganzas, melodramas, Biblical Epics, Horror films, Crime and Gangster films, Romances, mysteries, Comedies, etc  were all avidly watched and enjoyed at the Oorgaum Hall.