You mean the busy signal? We used to call our own number, and then talk and listen in between the beeps. There’d usually be 5 or so other people doing it as well, so it was sorta like a primitive chat room.
Here’s a recent thread on party lines.
Growing up in the 1970s, my parents had a typical Western Electric battleship of a phone … black, with a steel dial. Weighed a ton. Hard-wired into the wall.
The best part of all was the New York Bell-printed number insert in the middle of the dial.
AREA CODE 716
TF-9796
Buffalo apparently got seven digit dialing in the early 1960s, a while after area codes were established in North America.
THANK YOU! Yes, that’s it. The beeps were the busy signal! I couldn’t remember that. All the other kids who were on the same party line would be on, too. I remember now.
You’re right, it was like a very early chat room. Except, I think we were all about 6. 
For Easter, the kids in the Olsen clan would search for jellybeans instead of eggs. There was always a licorice bean on the black wall phone in the kitchen.
Cool thread!
Here’s some folks trying to get you to start using the named exchanges again in daily use - The Telephone EXchange Name Project
My house here in Portland is still connected to the original exchange at the BElmont CO, so I could give out my number as BElmont 5-xxxx. The Belmont Street Central Office houses 8 or ten exchanges now, I think.
I remember when placing long distance calls, you used to listen to several seconds of tones, clicks, noise suppression tests and so forth as the call was routed through a wide variety of mechanical relays and switches from coast to coast.
I also remember a friend trying, in the late seventies, to get me to invest $5000 in a new company called “Cellular One” - I was the idiot that said “Phones in people’s cars? Yeah, great for 27 rich doctors, otherwise, who’d buy one?” :smack: :smack: :smack: !!!
Yeah, I remember when those futuristic button phones came out. beep-beep-beep-beep.
I know who ever had the number of 321-2333 got called alot (think about that one for a second 
)
Funny, I had forgotten about long distance calls.
I remember talking to people on the phone long distance and the static and volume made it hard to hear what they were saying.
There are a few places in Warrenton Oregon (top NW tip of Oregon) were the telephone lines are so old they can’t support touch tone service.
I used to own an ISP in that area and was shocked to learn this.
Hey cool!
I’m in Tigard so mine is NEptune 3 - XXXX
I think I’ll start using that. 
Yes, I discovered by accident that if I phoned someone and got a busy signal, I could hear faint voices in the background (this was around 1969). The people would be talking between the busy signal. It was incredible, people from all over the city were on it (maybe a hundred). I met my 1st girlfriend that way. Im tempted to try it now and see if it still works.
That only works if you dial ZOmbie-5 1212 first.
zombie crosstalk
That still works (you get an automated message telling you to hang up your phone so it can ring).
I got a touch-town retro black candlestick style phone in HS. Which I took to college with be (along with my cell phone) to use on the landline in my dorm. People were completely baffeled by it.