He founded the highly successful Gray Telephone Pay Station Company, which became one of the largest employers in the Hartford, Connecticut, area.

He moved to Hartford and found employment as a polisher in an armory, where he proved to be a good worker.

He then worked for Pratt & Whitney, where he rose to head of the polishing department, a position he occupied for 15 years.

[4] According to legend, the wife of Charlie Bennett, a Major League Baseball catcher, devised a chest protector which he began wearing openly (as opposed to under his uniform) in 1883.

[6] Supposedly, Gray was inspired to create a payphone when no one would let him use their phone to call a doctor for his wife.

Gray improved his invention, when he made a signal device for telephone pay stations.

[6] In 1891, he founded the Gray Telephone Pay Station Company to install payphones across the United States.