Uncle Cecil’s latest reminded me of the phone exchange we had when I was a kid. Do you remember one (or more)?
Mine was DAvenport. My dad resisted shifting to 32 for a long time. At least it seemed like a long time to a little kid.
It’s not an Uncle Cecil column; it’s a Staff Report. 
Moderator!!!
:smack: DOH!
Thanks.
My parent’s was MIdway, and my grandparent’s was ORiole .
I found them here.
When my family lived in London for a year, it was TERminus: I think it was named after King Cross and St Pancras railway stations nearby.
The alphabetic prefix that we had in Australia was B, which didn’t stand for anything. The code was completely different, too: only one letter per number, and the letters chosen so that they sounded as different as possible, i.e. A - 1, B - 2, F - 3, down to Z - 9
We had TRail, then ROxbury and then CHerry.
MOHAWK.
Dad’s work was in the FRANKLIN exchange.
I recall LOCUST and SKYLINE in North Little Rock.
ATlantic, then YUkon.
When I was a kid living in Baltimore 6, Maryland (before zip codes), we had HAmilton 6, then it was changed to IVanhoe 8 just before the change to all numbers.
TRinity 2 (Waterville, ME), FRontier 7 (Madison, NJ), MErcury 5 (Chatham, NJ)
In Waterville in the 1950s, though, we didn’t dial seven digits for local calls. Just the last five.
Mine was HUnter 2-4980, in Camarillo, CA. We didn’t switch over to seven digits until 1970. I used to call my great aunt in Redwood City, CA and her exchange was EMerson.
I remember picking up the phone, dialing (and I do mean dialing)“O”, then telling the operator that I would like to make a long distance call to Redwood City, California. The operator would ask for the number I was calling from (!) and then the number I was calling, with the exchanges of course.
I don’t consider myself all that old, but boy, telecommunications has certainly changed in my lifetime.
Since this is about a Staff Report, I’ll move the thread to the appropriate forum.
bibliophage
moderator CCC
When I was a kid, our exchange (River Grove, IL) was GLadstone.
Hey, Chicago area dopers! Remember the “HUdson 3-2-7-hundred” TV jingle?
REpublic 92693.
How *could * you forget Bouchelle Carpet?
Growing up, we were at VAnderbilt 7.
Most UK codes still have the remnants of these codes. Lost Property at Kings Cross: 020 7837 4334 (= 020 7TER 4334). Also, long before 999 was in place as an emergency number, you could dial 1212 from any London phone and it would connect to the local police station. This has persisted in the modern numbers for many stations - Scotland Yard is 020 7230 1212.
In Saratoga, California, we had UNion 7; next town over, Los Gatos had ELgato. Both sets of grandparents lived in San Jose. One had AXminster, the other CYpress
Yep, I remember that one!
We had TUxedo9, then BElden7.
Ah, the advantage of being the author of the piece in question is that my old exchange is used as an example in the report: JEFferson, in Northern Virginia.
HAzel
When I was a kid, there was a radio ad during Pittsburgh Pirate baseball games. The guy whose company was advertised died in 2001. I just read about him:
http://www.post-gazette.com/obituaries/20010730ziskindobitp3.asp