High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company was the name of the Bell System`s telephone operations in California. It gained in size by acquiring smaller telephone companies along the Pacific coast, such as Sunset Telephone Telegraph in 1917. As it grew, it built and occupied San Francisco`s Pacific Telephone Building on New Montgomery Street, described as a "monument to western progress and foresight". Purchases extended Pacific Telephone`s territory into Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho; on July 1, 1961, however, those operations were split off to become Pacific Northwest Bell. Entering into the 1980s, Pacific Telephone had assets valued at $14.5 billion, making it the biggest of any of the 21 Bells AT T wholly owned, which also made Pacific Telephone the "crown jewel" of the operating companies. However, Pacific Telephone was one of the least profitable Bells, due to very tough local telephone regulations in California.