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Housed in Archival Box D-14 is this Sandusky Telephone
Directory, published by Ohio Bell Telephone in 1963. A princess phone graces
the cover of the directory. Special features of the princess phone was its
petite size and light-up dial.
A relatively new function of telephones in the Ohio
Bell system in 1963 was the ability to dial long distance phone calls directly,
using the digit 1 and the area phone before the regular telephone number. As you can see in
the alphabetical listings of telephone numbers, Sandusky Library had the same
telephone number that it has today: 419-625-3834.
Many residents will recall the International College
of Beauty, owned and operated by Jon Knapp, who was the hairdresser of Miss
America 1963, Jackie Mayer.
Before Standard Oil was bought out by British
Petroleum, Baxter’s Sohio station offered round the class road services for
automobile drivers. There were several service stations located at the
intersection of Tiffin Avenue and Venice Road in the 1960s.
Surfside 66, a seafood and steak restaurant at Battery
Park offered drive-in as well as boat-in service to customers.
Long before online shopping and cell phones were
widely available, Ohio Bell’s slogan was “Let your fingers do the walking!”
Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to
see this vintage telephone directory, and many, many more resources which
document the history of Sandusky and Erie County.
3 comments:
Since when were Sandusky phone numbers 7 digits long? When I was growing up there (1940's and 50's), our home phone number was 2424-J. We were, like most others, on a party line. Also, when making a long distance call (one would do so usually only if someone was sick or dying!!), we had to first speak to the operator. For the 7 memebers in our family, we had only one phone in the home; it was in the dining room (not much privacy when on a personal call).
Going back even futher in time, before she married my mother worked as a telephone operator back in the early 1920's, when the phone company was, I understand, located in a building on the NW corenr of Jeffferson and Wayne Streets.
One of the last areas in the country to get a dial system was ours; in about 1957 I think. Prior to that all calls were placed by directly giving the operator the number you were calling. A separate operator handled long distance. For "person to person" you would give the long distance operator a name and number in the distant city and hang up the phone. She would then call you back when she had your party on the line. You could even specify a particular time in advance. ("Tomorrow at 10AM") Is anyone old enough to remember picking up the phone and hearing the operator say "Number Please"?
Prior to the dialing of seven numbers, a following letter indicated a party line. I believe those without a letter suffix indicated a private line. In those days our home number was 1009-J; later 1556-R.
I still have a turquoise Princess phone! My father, Eugene August Buddelmeyer, worked for the Ohio Bell Telephone Co beginning abt 1951. He relocated our family to Worthington Ohio in 1963 to take an advancement. I went to work for Ohio Bell Telephone Co, Columbus Ohio in 1971, after graduating from Northridge High school, Johnstown Ohio.
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