Besides “0 for operator,” what is the oldest phone number? That is, what phone number has been in service, assigned to the same person, place or thing, for the longest time?
-JoAnne
Great first question JoAnne and welcome to the board!
I’m going to start looking later; you’ve got my curiosity piqued.
IIRC The first telephone number in Chicago belonged to the guy with the first private telephone (he lived in the building at the NE corner of Clark and Leland) The plaque says, again IIRC, that the number was “16”
Going from memory and as an aside, a lot of early pbx’s didn’t really have numbers assigned to them- just switching locations. Remember the big switchboards?
If I had to guess though, I’d probably say it’s not as old as we’d like it to be (for coolness factor). When the telco’s upgraded, they most likely just changed the numbers that were no longer consistent with the new switching systems.
Who has numbers one through fifteen, I wonder.
That would go with the first automated phone switching systems. Originally, you often did not “dial” the number, if the phone didn’t have a dial - you simply rattled the hook the appropriate number of times. You can still “dial” a rotary phone that way if you can get your timing right.
The touch I like is that the automated phone switch was invented by a mortician, Almon Strowger, who was convinced the local phone operators were deliberately screwing up his calls, so he invented the step-by-step switch:
http://www.siemenscom.com/customer/9801/11.html
He said he wanted “a girl-less, cuss-less switching device.”.
We have to define what we mean by “first phone number”. Obviously, Strowger used some numbers in demonstrating his invention, but those wouldn’t have corresponded to any public listing. The first commercial use of Strowger’s patents was in La Porte, Indiana in 1892 by the Automatic Electric Company. I cannot find any info right now on how they assigned numbers.
Interesting thoughts from the message board so far.
yabob said, “We have to define what we mean by “first phone number”.”
What I was thinking of was slightly different – the oldest number we could dial now and get the same person/place/thing we would have 50 years or more ago. Difference: the first man was Adam (or not, but let’s not get too technical), the oldest man is some more recent dude.
That doesn’t mean we have to restrict our discussion to that, of course, but that’s what I meant.
I thought more about this. I’d say that keeping a number in the family would qualify. So if Benjamin Pullman had 555-1212 and listed himself as “B. Pullman” in Atlantic City in 1948, and then he died and his wife Bea kept the number and kept the listing as B. Pullman, and then the son or daughter Bartram or Bertha kept it with the same listing, it would count as the same number. Or if it belongs to the same person, if he changed his name, that should qualify too.
If a company changed its name (from Maria’s Deli to Maria’s Cucina Italiano) but kept the same number that would qualify. But if Joe’s Greasy Spoon were bought out by McBigEatery’s with a new sign and totally different setup, it wouldn’t.
Maybe the sticking point would be whether the person who answers the phone would likely know about the original owner of the number. If it’s your grandfather, no sweat. If it’s the guy who started the company, at least some of the people working there would know. If it’s Joe, even the McBigEatery manager would probably be blissfully unaware.
There is also the problem of the area code. Just having it added on would not change the number, I don’t think. But I’m not sure about whether having the area code changed to another one for an entire area would blow it – in Baltimore, for example, the area code used to be 301, and now it’s 410. And you have to dial the area code even on a local call, so the number you dial is different.
And yet, if you have a cellular phone, on some systems, for some reason, it’s smart enough to know that if you don’t add the area code it should just use the same area code as the one you’re dialing from. So in that case you would dial the same number as you had in 1948, if your cell phone was in the right area code.
Somehow I think we’re going to end up discussing George Washington’s genuine original axe.
-JoAnne
From “Wonderful Old Lawrence” by Elfriede F. Rowe. He talked about telephones in Lawrence, Kansas.
When phone numbers were put into use, they started with the digit one. As more businesses installed phones, they wanted to keep their same number for the directory. However, if a residence subscriber or business moved to another location, they didn't get to keep their old number. Some of the numbers in the 1890's that were kept for years, were: "1-Kasold's West End Grocers, (Goble's now, 547 Indiana), 48-Lawrence Journal Company; 3-Pendleton, W. H. Grocer, 86 Massachusetts; 2-State University School-Adam, S. of limits; 19-Selig, A. L. Ins. agt. -- Cor. Henry and Mass.; 70- Lawrence National Bank, Corner Winthrop; 30-Merchants National Bank-Merchants Bank Bldg.; 161-3- Mitchell, A. C. Residence-82l Miss. (3 designated 3 rings-party line); 170-Reedy Bros. cider and vinegar-East Warren; 93-Barteldes, F. & Co., wholesale seeds.
Prior to the use of numbers you could “ring Central” for the connection…or crank one long and two short (or two long and one short, whatever. You were on a local party line).
Should have looked more closely at your original question, though I like the “first number” tangent, too. That is probably hard to answer. Another factor to consider:
Prior to 1957, we didn’t have DDD in North America, and the dial plans were not uniform. That meant a lot of local exchanges had 4, 5, and 6 digit numbers. I remember my mother mentioning that my grandmother bitched about it no end when she had to start dialing 7 digits for local calls in her small town.
Yabob is correct. When I was raised in a small town our phone number had 4 digits (2344). When I was just three years old it became 5 digits (7-2344)…later 7.
So the look for the oldest still operating phone number might boil down to the last 4 numbers before the phone company started tacking things on.
As to the oldest phone number at all…well, that one might be easier:
On November 3, 1892, the first Strowger exchange was opened for public service at La Porte, Ind., with about seventy-five subscribers. This was the first automatic telephone exchange to be installed anywhere, and a considerable amount of ceremony was attached to the affair, with a special train run from Chicago and a brass band on hand to greet the guests.
Anybody got an 1893 phone book from La Porte, Ind?
the oldest number is etcum spiri 220
second oldest is beachwood 45789
JoAnne, you might be interested in this
link. It’s not specifically about the oldest numbers, but it’s nonetheless relevant.
BTW my parents have had the same number for 44 years.
My parents, in Arlington, Virginia moved into their current house in 1947. Still have the same 7-digit number today.
As an addenda: I was born in Danville, Va in 1944. I can still remember my grandmother’s phone number from around 1950. It was 6089J. You just picked up the phone and the live operator asked you who you wanted to talk to. When I told my mom that recently, she said she never could have remembered it. I am sure that I did as it was drilled into me as a kid–you learned your address and phone number in case you got lost.
My grandmothers’ number changed to SW2-2553 as the town grew and more numbers came along. So my guess is that the current phone number that would still ring up the original owner if you called it would be in a large city, probably a business which was going in the 40’s or earlier.
[hijack] When did 3 didjet special no.s start? 991,411, and the like?
I believe 3-digit was used primarily by hotel exchanges.
They would have a couple of outside lines, but phones in all the expensive rooms, and a switchboard operator in the lobby. You may say that’s not quite an official number, but it was the same kind of equipment, and always a Bell employee at the station, because it was a monopoly.
This is a VERY old thread 
… but I just ran across it.
And, I happen to know what may well be the answer. Once upon a time, this was a very famous phone number, celebrated in song. The song might be one of the first musical advertisements!
The number today is 212-736-5000, for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.
Before that, it was PEnnsylvania 6-5000. There’s a Glen Miller song by that name. Glen Miller’s band used to play at that hotel a lot.
(My 89 year old father in law used to go dancing at all the hotel clubs in New York. For the price of a cup of coffee you could dance and listen to the Big Bands for hours!)
As it happens, the same number worked even earlier, as a four-digit number:
PENnsylvania 5000.
The number still works; I just called it
My mother is in her 80s and on Christmas day was talking about her fading memory. She had bought and wrapped my father’s present some time ago and couldn’t remember where she had put it. She mentioned all the things she could remember from years ago including her family phone number in Kenya when they lived there after WWII. I expressed surprise that she recall that and she laughed. “It was 34. There weren’t many phones.”
Growing up in the 70s, I was taught that the first phone number was assigned to, and still used by, a zombie.
This is something the phone company could easily answer. I’m pretty sure they know the date service was started on a number.
I have three relatives that have their original phone number from the early 1960’s. The area code in that part of the state changed ten years ago. But, the phone number is the same.
What’s that famous song? Jenny 867‒5309 I recall reading that’s a real working number in several area codes. There’s been several news articles about it.
When I was a kid in the 50’s the ranch was on one of last rural phone companies. ie not Ma bell. The numlber was 23f11. Which stood for the 23 farmer’s 11 phone. Our ring was two short rings.
The picking up the reciever thing and rattling the hook thing would not do any thing. If you wanted to place a call you took the reciever off the hook listen, and if no one was talking you would ask “line bussy?”. If it was not and you were calling some one on your own line you just turned the crank to make the other phones all ring. As I said ours was two short rings. others were short and longs or longs. If you wanted to place a call to a different line or a AT&T customer you would ring one long ring for the operator. When the operator came on you would give her the number you were calling.
There were 16 houses on our line and it was the last line of the rural phone company. around the mid 50’s Ma bell took over the system and we got rotary dial phones with a 5 digit number.
And another thing about the old phone there was no dial tone and if your battery went dead it was hard for people on the other end of the line to hear you talking.
My 95-year-old grandmother has had the same phone number since long before I was born – probably before area codes existed.
And yes, this is the perfect thread to zombify. 