Certainly British phones originally had letters (though Z was left out). We used named exchanges until the 1970’s.
When I was a kid, my home town (population about 6,500) had four-digit phone numbers. Later, we got two different 3-digit prefixes. When I went home for Christmas, they had changed the system and now everybody has to dial the area code as well.
In 1983 my niece got married in a rural town, population about 700. The reception was at a local lodge and the basement had one bowling lane—manual pin resetting. On the wall was an old clock with a logo for the still-in-business Chevy Dealer. “Dial 7.” I swear.
Small world. 2584 was the last 4 of my mom’s number. BTW, easy to dial, er/ push, due to the button layout, 3 down vertically, then left center.
I’ve lived in NEptune and later ROger. Before the NE was added to the first number, we could call by telling the operator 1110M (one one one oh M). Yes I’m old.
One reason the phone co. dropped the word prefix was when they started using zero in the second digit spot. Mine is now 602 and there is no letter on the dial/button with the zero.
I just realized my exchange is Jupiter-8. I’m gonna start driving people CrAzY.
I’m on the MOhawk8 exchange! And have been since the late 1950’s! The final 4 digits changed once (when they upgraded the exchange), and the area code has changed once, but MOhawk8 has been a constant all my life.