The JKL Museum of Telephony, a telephone-centric museum located near the town of San Andreas in California, was destroyed last week by California wildfire, according to a blog post on the museum's website.

The John K. La Rue museum was "dedicated to preserving telephone history" and contained thousands of telephones and telephone switching boards dated from the late 1800's up to present-day phone technology, as well as telephone books and catalogues. Now, all of it has been destroyed.

See the photos below, courtesy of the JKL Museum website:

In a new blog post published yesterday, a representative from the museum wrote that the the former site of the museum is "still smoking," with fire crews still putting out hot spots - six days after it burned down.

"It is our intention to rebuild the museum and this involves lots of careful planning which will take some time," the post said.

The museum has also said it is seeking items to replace its trove of unique telephones and telephone-related memorabilia.

The non-profit museum is just one of many casualties of the Butte and Valley fires tearing through the northern part of the state. Sadly, the Los Angeles Times reports that the current death toll is five. More than 70,000 acres have been destroyed, hundreds of homes burned to the ground and thousands of people displaced due to the fires.