I called my parents this morning - same phone number since 1971. So it occurred to me - what’s the oldest phone number tied to a particular person or business that still works? Recycling the phone number doesn’t count.
This probably won’t win, but PE-65000 still gets you Hotel Pennsylvania in New York.
Wiki says it’s the oldest continuously operating phone number in NYC, belonging to the Hotel Penn since 1919.
Doh!
Someone will probably top this, but for personal use I submit my father’s: in continuous use by him since 1958.
Not exactly the answer to the OP, but my Mum’s family were a veterinarians in rural North Wales. Today their number is something like 01555 555 303 (5’s added to protect the innocent). But originally (in the immediate post war period, possibly earlier) it was just 3.
The first family to get one was the doctor, then the police (I think, I retelling this from memory), then them, so their number was just 3. Over the ensuing years it became 303 then 555303, and so on (555 area code became 01555 in my memory).
Now that’s cool. I remember reading about someone whose family had the number 4 in Mimico or Long Branch (in what is now southwestern Toronto) in the 1920s, but I don’t think the family stayed there continuously until the present day.
I live in the house my parents bought in 1957; same family, same phone number.
Rather similar is ‘Whitehall 1212’, the Metropolitan Police’s original information room number, predating 999. Other London police stations had similar 1212 numbers from their local exchanges, and these still exist in the modern forms, with New Scotland Yard being 020 7230 1212. Plus the much newer London-wide non-emergency number: 0300 123 1212.
My parents still have the same number from when they moved into their current home in 1966. And in their case, it’s still the same number including the area code, which is unusual as so many of those have changed. (Although the Hotel Pennsylvania still retains its original 212 area code as well.)
I was drinking in The Running Horses, a pub in Surrey, the other week, and noticed an old receipt for bed and board that was framed on the wall, dating from (IIRC) 1930. It gave the phone number as (again IIRC) “Esher 279”. The phone number of the pub today is still effectively the same, but with additions over the years: 01372 372279. I thought that was pretty neat.
(01372 would have formerly been 0372, or 0 E S 2 for “Esher”. Or it might have been EP for Epsom, I can’t remember!)
My grandparents bought a house in 1948 in Pennsylvania - my grandma is still living there. Apart from the addition of area codes and the subsequent changing of such, the number has always been the same.
I’m pretty sure you won’t find many totally unchanged numbers from a long time back, as most phone systems have had to lenghten numbers to increase capacity.
I think the North American numbering plan is pretty unique in still using the same format for, well, yonks. Since 1951, in fact, according to Wikipedia, with the first dialling code to be introduced being 201.
So, I guess the oldest unchanged numbers would be 201-xxx-xxx ('cept it seems you now have to dial the initial “1” as well due to the overlay).
I nominate “0” – but I can’t find any evidence of when it was first used.
Seven digit numbers started in New York in 1931. They were actually two letters and five numbers, but the letters were eventually translated to numbers. Some web sources claim the PE6-5000 is the oldest, but there may be others issued at the exact same time that are still being used.
My grandmother’s house in Toronto–now occupied by my aunt–has had the same phone number since (I believe) 1946, when my grandparents bought the house. Of course, since southern Ontario went to ten-digit dialing in the early 1990s, you have to add the area code, but it’s still the same number.
0–the Operator is still there.
Don’t know if they are still working, but in the 1970’s I was working for NY Telephone. We had residential customer’s records dating from 1911 (the oldest I saw), 1914, and so on. The bills were still being paid, and some of them were in rent controlled apartments. They (numbers and apartments) might still be there passed on to the original customers descendants. Their numbers had evolved from 4 digit to 7 digit, but it was still (theoretically) the same customer. Their paper records (actually cardboard) had this beautiful Palmer method fountain pen notes. That contrasted nicely with the spastic chicken scrathces that is my handwriting.
My father’s business number probably dates back to around 1920.
And she could really use a bathroom break.