ELgin1-4487.

According to this article the suffixes were additional digits used for party lines when automation started:
https://history.stackexchange....york-phone-book-mean

Radioman and WaterburyBob have it. Those were additional codes to distinguish between multiple users on the same party line.

At some point, the party line users all got unique phone numbers.

My grandparents in a very small Pennsylvania town had a party line through the middle or late '60s. I was surprised one day when I picked up the phone and there was someone else on it already. I have no idea whether they had an extra code.

I do remember that to call Junior Samples, you dialed BR5-49.

When I was a young boy (late 40's and early 50's) our phone number was (the name of our town), 446 (a three party line). In the mid 60's we got so big they put a 2 in front of the 446. Eventually in the 70's we were forced into the full number sequence we have today.

When my mother was a a young girl (mid 1920's) they had a old system where the operator sat above the drug store, manually connecting one number to the other. The operator overlooked the center of the town (it was a really small town). My mothers childhood number was (the name of the town) 1. She spoke of the town operator taking messages for her mother or telling the caller to call back her mother was in the grocery store shopping. Such was small town life in Rural Massachusetts in the 20's and 30's.

No, we were not on a rural party line. My grandparents were and I know the difference.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
My dad explained to me how there were several bell sequences used for a multi party line with the same number.

W and R were two of the many bell sequences, but there were many others. So your number was 672R while someone else would have 672J and someone else 672W, all with different bell sequences of short and long bells. You only picked up if you heard your bell "letter" sequence.

For example, My dad's bell sequence was one short ring and three long rings. They didn't pick up unless they heard their bell sequence.

So that is the reason for the letter at the end.

Wow, thanks for bringing back that memory. My dad has been gone for over 20 years now.

Gotta go, just got a call from BUtterfield 8

We had a party line in 1988 or so.

There were two types of party lines.

A few posters above have written about distinctive ring patterns. These were used for multi-party lines, which were typically used in rural areas.

The other type of party line was the two-party line, more often used in urban areas. With this type, distinctive ring was not necessary; with the two-party line, the ringing signal could be applied selectively to either one of the parties and the other party's phone did not ring.

quote:

No, we were not on a rural party line. My grandparents were and I know the difference.

Your line was working off of equipment using "grounded ringing". You phone had the ringer tied between the red wire and ground. "Central" would place ring voltage on the red wire of the pair going to your house to ring your phone.

If it had been a party line, the other customer would have had their ringer tied from the white wire to ground.

I upgraded a good number of those back in the 70s.

Our number in Fullerton was LA(mbert)-5-xxxx.

Funny it is the only old phone number I recall.

EL8-7884. Then area codes were added.
Parents had same phone number for 73 years.
When I moved to small town Wyoming, all you needed to dial in town was the last 4 digits.
Wyoming still has only one area code (307) for entire state.

PC

As a kid I was taught that my phone number was JU8-3757. When asked, that's obviously how I answered.

It was 1974 and apparently this was no good!? In kindergarten remember the school calling my mother down to the school during the middle of the day to discuss the matter! I can remember being in the front office with her and some administrator, dealing with this apparently horrible issue! lmao I had to be taught to say 588 instead! Crazy.

That's how it works. I can remember all my childhood friend's phone numbers that haven't worked in 40 years, but I had to look at my cell phone today to double check my number I've had for over 10 years.

What did J stand for, if anything? Thank you for your help.

quote:

Originally posted by Some Shot:

quote:

No, we were not on a rural party line. My grandparents were and I know the difference.

Your line was working off of equipment using "grounded ringing". You phone had the ringer tied between the red wire and ground. "Central" would place ring voltage on the red wire of the pair going to your house to ring your phone.

If it had been a party line, the other customer would have had their ringer tied from the white wire to ground.

I upgraded a good number of those back in the 70s.

Early 50’s my mothers work phone number was “0”, easy enough to remember!

That ended in 1955 when dial service was fully implemented and she transferred to a business office.

Mine was BR549 ..

We were HEmlock something. My father was a big shot in the local phone company so we got the first of everything. Extension phone, Princess phone, Bell Chime, Colored phones. Wow, that was a long time ago.

quote:

What did J stand for, if anything? Thank you for your help.

There was no "J" in the grounded-ringing system. You only had the red or white wires to ring out on.

For those of you old enough to remember the old Milton Metz evening radio call-in show on 50,000 watt clear-channel WHAS-840 AM, heard in most of the USA in the 1960s, the phone was JUniper 5-2385 (585-2385). Ah, the good old days!

Discussions of old telephone technology always remind me of the anti-tinkle circuit in rotary dial phones. The name always makes me chuckle.

“What is the purpose of an anti-tinkle circuit in a phone?”
https://www.quora.com/What-is-...e-circuit-in-a-phone

A radio ad/jingle for a carpet cleaning business in Boston area back in early '60's.

How many cookies did Andrew eat? ANdrew-8-8000.

How do you keep your carpets clean? Call ANdrew-8-8000.

IT-219

6 house party line. one long ring then two short