The museum was originally sponsored by the Washington Telephone Pioneers, and is now a part of the Telecommunications History Group, based in Denver.

As a result of the Modification of Final Judgement in 1984, the AT&T monopoly was broken up, and an organizational mandate required Pacific Northwest Bell to modernize their aging telephone switching equipment.

Realizing that this was perhaps the last opportunity to save examples of vintage electromechanical switches, Warrick requested that Pacific Northwest Bell (PNB) make arrangements to transfer ownership of selected equipment to the Telephone Pioneers and allow them to set up a museum somewhere in Seattle.

[4] Frames of electromechanical switching equipment were brought in from existing central offices, and lifted to the third floor by cranes.

In 2016 the museum was featured on a popular YouTube channel run by Tom Scott, as part of the "Things You Might Not Know" series.