Then and now: Telephone numbers once had letters

Pages of an old phone book.

To the left is a page from the 1954 Pacific Telephone Book for Lake Tahoe (California) when calls still were placed verbally through the operator. (Think of Andy Griffith in Mayberry).

Emerald Bay is on the cover of this old phone book.

Notice the intriguing phone numbers like Homewood 2-Y-5 or Tallac 31.

All the phone listings, A-to-Z, occupied only 18 pages. Self-dialed local calling didn’t arrive until the later 1950s. Long-distance calling required operator assistance into the 1960s.

Did you know Kimball and Ludlow? Prior to today’s all-digit phone listings, KImball (54) and LUdlow (58) were the word prefixes for South Shore California and Nevada, respectively.

For example, KImball 4-6474 today is 544-6474, and LUdlow 8-6611 today is 588-6611. The change from word prefixes to all-digit occurred in the early 1960s.

Telephone book courtesy of Theresa and Darrell Eymann.

— Bill Kingman