Patrick Schlott is still a young man, a 2016 graduate of what was then called Vermont Technical College, in Randolph. But he is old enough to remember when payphones were still ubiquitous.

When he was a student at Montpelier High School, from 2008 to 2012, there were still payphones downtown, and the nearby Berlin Mall had a bank of six phones.

“I remember distinctly one time needing to use a payphone to call home,” from the mall, Schlott said.

His use of payphones coincided with the era when they started to disappear, replaced by the growing use of cell phones, and then smartphones.

But the need for public phones hasn’t gone away. Cell service doesn’t reach everywhere, and in a pinch, having a phone available out in the open, without having to knock on a door, is exactly what a person whose car has broken down or who’s lost their cell service might need.

With this in mind, Schlott has installed a free public telephone at North Tunbridge General Store. Anyone can use it to make local and long-distance calls in the United States with no charge. The project unites Schlott’s lifelong interest in communications technology with a public purpose: to help people connect when they don’t have the means.

“It was just sort of a geeky hobby of mine,” Schlott said in, naturally, a telephone interview. But it’s now “a positive benefit for the community at the same time.”

The North Tunbridge phone came about after conversations between Schlott and Mike Gross, who co-owns the store with his wife, Lois. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Schlott and his wife lived in Tunbridge, though they recently bought a house and moved to Williamstown, Vt. The Grosses were receptive to the idea of having a public phone.

One morning last summer, they arrived to open the store in the morning and there was a young woman sleeping on a picnic table in front of the church and grange hall across Route 110. She’d been camping with her partner in Royalton and after an argument the previous evening decided to walk home, to Williamstown. The Grosses invited her inside, got her a coffee and let her use the phone to call someone for a ride. She’d left her own at the campsite.

This episode, among others, pointed to the need for a phone that would be available at all hours, Lois Gross said in an interview at the store. They let Schlott tie the phone into their system, but Schlott pays for the line.

The phone looks like a payphone of old, but with some key differences. In place of information the phone company used to put on the front of the phone, Schlott has affixed a card, in the old blue and white colors of Ma Bell, that says “Why a payphone?” At the end of the explanation, he writes, “Think of this phone as a friendly neighbor — here to help when you need it.”

It also includes a panel with helpful numbers on it, such as the closest towing operation, Blakeman’s, in Tunbridge, the post office, the town fire department, a suicide prevention hotline, and the governor’s office, among others. And it has a number, so someone who needs to receive a call, from a towing company or a family member, say, can do so.

The phone has been in place since the end of March and Lois Gross estimated that at least one person a day makes use of it.

“I’ve had parents come in and show their kids how to use the phone,” she said.

The main difference between this phone and an old payphone is there’s no “pay” in it. The coin slot is still there, but picking up the phone furnishes a familiar-sounding dial tone, no dime required. Pressing the phone’s buttons yields a tinny plinking sound, less rich than the notes of the analog phones of yore but no less welcoming.

A reporter who visited the phone recently dialed zero and Schlott picked up. “The volunteer operator service is just me,” he said, but he also is hoping to recruit some volunteers. As operator, he can help callers reach their intended destinations.

Payphones haven’t entirely disappeared, but their numbers are much diminished. Verizon once operated an estimated half a million payphones. In October 2011, it sold its last 50,000 to a company called Pacific Telemanagement Services, which also bought FairPoint’s remaining payphones in 2012. Pacific offers both coin-operated and “coinless” payphones, according to its website.

Part of Schlott’s inspiration came from similar projects, such as PhilTel, which provides public phones in Philadelphia, and FuTel, which is based in Portland, Oregon.

RandTel, which is less a company than a winking name for Schlott’s ambitions, is an outgrowth of his longstanding interest in how a voice crackles down the line or through the air and into a waiting ear.

His mom is from Long Island and his dad is from Queens, but he grew up in Vermont. Two of his uncles worked for what was then called Nynex. They always had a few relics lying around, and a VTC classmate gave him the dial from an old rotary phone. He’s also a ham radio operator.

He majored in electrical engineering at VTC and went to work after graduation for LED Dynamics, a Randolph company that designs, analyzes and produces LEDs. Schlott’s work on the public phone was no surprise to Bill McGrath, the company’s president and chief technical officer, and his brother Scott, the director of IT.

“He’s definitely got an old soul and is very interested in vintage anything,” Bill McGrath said in a phone interview. Scott noted that Schlott is the kind of person who, when he sees a need tries to use his acumen to fulfill it.

“He’s not looking out for profit,” he said. “He’s looking out for public good.”

The McGraths helped Schlott, both with equipment they had available, but also with figuring out how to connect the old analog phones to the digital service they would need to tap into. The McGraths made working in technology seem as if every day is a science fair.

“I think within the tech community, where there’s an opportunity to do a project where there’s knowledge to be gained and to do good, it kind of hits a sweet spot,” Scott said. “It’s the kind of thing we like to sit around and shoot the bull about,” he added.

Schlott is looking for more places to install phones, and has begun collecting old payphones. The old phones “were the only things that were built to last for decades and be out in the elements,” he said.

He hopes to put one in downtown Randolph soon, and hopes more general stores might be interested in hosting a phone.

“If there’s anyone out there who has an idea for where a phone could go, reach out,” he said.

For more information or to contact RandTel, go to randtel.co.

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.