Remember when phone numbers started with letters? (2024)
One of the first things I had to learn growing up was my home phone number. I still remember it. MElrose 7-5833. The number I knew best, next to my own, was my Grandmother's. She lived a few miles south of us. Her number was STate 4-3437. Besides Melrose and State there was Liberty, Atwater, Chapel, Walnut, Clifford and Fleetwood, just to name a few.
Telephone numbers that started with words? Uh-huh.
We of a certain age remember when telephone numbers used to start with names instead of digits. The first two letters of the name were usually capitalized, and they corresponded to the first two digits of the phone number on a dial. This system started in the 1930s and lasted well into the '60s. Before that, three letters and four numbers were used. The phone exchange was prior to area codes and prefixes. The exchange names did more than provide a phone number. They identified the area of the city where you lived.
And, if you have ever wondered why telephones have letter designations it is a leftover from the days of alphanumeric phone numbers, when people needed to know which letters were covered by which numbers.
In the 1960s when the phone company began replacing the charming prefixes with a fully numeric system, a group called the Anti-Digit Dialing League was founded. This San Francisco group mounted a light-hearted campaign against the "dehumanization" of the telephone system through the elimination of prefix names.
I too liked it better when telephone exchanges had quaint names rather than lots of digits. Telephone numbers were almost poetic. They had character. They were easier to remember. Yes, those were simpler times.
Simpler as in listening to the Marvelettes hit song "BEechwood 4-5789" or watching an episode of "I Love Lucy" and seeing Ricky Ricardo dial MUrray-Hill 5-9975 when he was calling home.
Call Star researcher Cathy Knapp at (317) 444-6487. Follow her on Twitter: @IndyCathyKnapp.
In most areas of North America, telephone numbers in metropolitan communities consisted of a combination of digits and letters, starting in the 1920s until the 1960s. Letters were translated to dialed digits, a mapping that was displayed directly on the telephone dial.
Chunking is simply breaking down a long number into smaller units, so it is easier to remember. A perfect example of this is U.S. telephone numbers, which are broken down by area code, exchange, and local number, so that instead of a string of 10 digits, you have three digits, three digits and four digits.
Simply put, they're customized phone numbers that spell out a particular word or phrase using the corresponding letters assigned to phone keypad numbers. Some popular examples are 1-800-FLOWERS or 1-800-CONTACTS. Notice how much easier they are to recall than a long string of digits!
And to the 10-digit coding system the telecom giant introduced to, and on behalf of, the American public half a century ago. Which brings us back to 1962. Bell had begun rolling out its numeric system, the North American Numbering Plan, a decade earlier.
During the 1950s, cities still using five or six-digit numbers converted to the new method of seven-digit dialing. Typically, several six-digit (2L-4N) exchanges were co-located in one building already, with new ones added as old ones had filled up.
Local telephone numbers were governed by varying local numbering plans based on historical growth of services. Places without dial service often used special party line syntax (e.g., 2-R-48). The largest cities already used seven-digit telephone numbers and had dial service.
0 – s, z, soft-c – remember as "z is first letter of zero" 1 – d, t, th – remember as letters with 1 downstroke 2 – n – remember as having 2 downstrokes 3 – m – has three downstrokes 4 – r – imagine a 4 and an R glued together back-to-back 5 – L – imagine the 5 propped up against a bookend (L) 6 – j, sh, soft-ch, dg, ...
According to the 509 respondents to the September 2023 poll, the vast majority—272 members—said they have memorized five or more numbers. Only six admitted that they don't have a single number memorized.
The first two letters signified the switchboard the person was calling and the remaining numbers was the actual number of the party you were calling. It makes them easier to remember.
Letters were associated with the dial numbers to represent telephone exchange names in communities that required multiple central offices. For example, "RE7-3456" represented "REgent 7-3456".
The older numbers had two or three digits. Later, four digits were used. In December 1920, as the phone company prepared for direct local dialing, all numbers became four digits. The older two- and three-digit numbers acquired four digits by adding one or two zeroes: Spring 255, say, would have become Spring 0255.
Area code 303 is an area code that is part of Colorado. It is one of the earliest area codes ever made in 1947. It used to cover the entire state of Colorado, but after it was split by 719 in 1988 and 970 in 1995, it now covers the middle area of the state, specifically in the Denver and Boulder area.
Telephone numbers ranging from 1-3 digits first appear in the 1892-1893 City Directory. Telephone numbers ranging up to 4 digits first appear in the 1905 City Directory. Telephone numbers ranging up to 5 digits first appear in the 1917 City Directory.
In 1910 the USA, then a country with the highest telephone penetration rate, numbered over 7 million subscribers, which compared to Russia's 155,000. In the days of old an ordinary telephone number had four digits, while large cities used five-digit numbers.
Up until about the 1950s, phone numbers were alphanumeric, eventually settling on a 2-letter, 5-number system that usually identified the region of the phone number and also aimed to make it more memorable.
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