Our home exchange was LIberty7 and my dad’s at his office was MElrose8
Our changeover (in New Jersey) would have been in '62 or '62, I would think.
A few years ago, in a thrift store, I found a plastic plaque in the shape of a skeleton key with a thermometer on it. On the head of the key it says, “The key to friendly service, Mustain Tin Shop, Kenton, Ohio, Phone 4310.” For being a cheap giveaway and for coming across all those miles and decades to Tacoma, WA, it’s in remarkably good shape. It has crack in the top loop above the writing but that’s it. The thermometer shows its 76 degrees American just now. I tried googling the tin shop once, thinking it would be fun sending it back to them but came up with zip. I suspect they’re long out of business.
Now, I know that many towns and small cities had just a single exchange name and that if you lived within its boundaries, you didn’t have to add the exchange to the number when dialing. If you lived outside of the area, you presumably knew the exchange or had the operator assist you. I was wondering if any of you reading this would know what Kenton’s exchange was? Phone numbers went from six to seven digits in 1958 so this would have been before that.
I also have a metal file box that says on the front, “Compliments of Washington Title Insurance Co., 803-2nd Ave Seattle 4, Wash., MAin 1534.” The MAin exchange for downtown Seattle as was the postal code (the 4,) I presume.
Jefferson
When my parents got their first phone (I was 4) the number was 7-W, and not much call for exchanges. By the time that town got dial phones, they were just 7-digit numbers without exchanges.
First time I ever needed to know one was my dorm exchange in college, DIckens, in Baton Rouge.
First phone I ever had in my house with an exchange number was JEfferson, in Huntsville, Alabama. The next one I had was RAymond, in Montreal. Everything after that was 7-numeric with area codes, which came in about 1960…
SOuthold 5, after the name of the town.
Ours too YEllowstone 2-8413 Don’t call 50+ years out of date.
You would think the exchanges EMpire and STate, especially if they’re in the same area, would be in New York, right? Empire State?
Wrong! Darryl Lict remembers well! They were in the San Fernando Valley. I grew up with an EMpire number for several years, then a STate number.
ETA: Push-button phones didn’t exist. Nobody used phones for any kind of data entry. The numbers had letters attached to them SOLELY (as far as I’ve ever known) for the purpose of dialing these two-letter exchange codes. The 1 and 0 didn’t have letters. 2 through 9 had three letters each. Two of our usual 26 English letters simply didn’t exist in the phone alphabet – I think they were Q and X (or was it Q and Z?)
ETA-2: Robo-callers didn’t exist either. So the old dark ages of telephone technology had that going for it. Ditto for automated phone-tree answering systems. Two inventions high on my list of inventions that the world didn’t need.
Atwood.
But that’s a little irrational, isn’t it, since all the important information is contained in those first two letters, which don’t change in this case?
If you’re interested, the Telephone EXchange Project collects these.
I think you simply said the letters.
I was raised in a small town in South Texas and watched our telephone number grow. Everyone’s phone had just 4 numbers (2344). About the time I started first grade the phone company added one more number (7-2344). About third grade we got “Sterling.” (ST7-2344). Nobody said Sterling. Everyone I knew, and the advertising we saw just said ST7.
Ours was WYdown. But not understanding the concept of an “exchange,” I couldn’t figure out why the first two nines were Wydown but the second two weren’t. I thought my phone number should have been Wydown 4 Wydown 57, since it was 994-9957.
My grandmother’s was STerling1-4302.
In Springfield, Mass. we had REpublic and STate.
First it was 886 ( TUrner 6 ). No clue why, it was Mt. Airy in Philly.
Then it was 635 ( MElrose 5 ). That I get, since the exchange was in Melrose Park, next to Elkins Park in Montgomery County, PA.
I had to look it up, as I don’t recall the names ever being used in conversation, although I vaguely remember them in the rare ad (I was born in '75.) Mine was “CLiffside.”
TAlmadge-2, in the Bronx NY.
Sherwood.
PIttsburg 8. South of Chi town.