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Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:54 pm
by username
Does anyone know where I can find telephone exchange names for the Kansas City area from about the 1950s or 1960s?
I know DElmar was used in this area for 33- exchanges. I am also sure that WYandotte was used in this area for 99- exchanges because it appears in Ma Bell's officially recommended exchange names guide from 1955. But many cities deviated from the Ma Bell guide for certain exchanges, and I am sure Kansas City had a few.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:52 pm
by Cyclops
username wrote:
Does anyone know where I can find telephone exchange names for the Kansas City area from about the 1950s or 1960s?
I know DElmar was used in this area for 33- exchanges. I am also sure that WYandotte was used in this area for 99- exchanges because it appears in Ma Bell's officially recommended exchange names guide from 1955. But many cities deviated from the Ma Bell guide for certain exchanges, and I am sure Kansas City had a few.
Ha! Somewhere I have a phone book from 69. I'm guessing they would be listed there. Offhand I remember 93X being Westport, 36X being Emerson, 52X being Jackson, 76X being South, 53X was Jefferson... after that, I'll have to find the old phone book... AKP? Highlander?
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:09 am
by DeadendLafayette
username wrote:
Does anyone know where I can find telephone exchange names for the Kansas City area from about the 1950s or 1960s?
I know DElmar was used in this area for 33- exchanges. I am also sure that WYandotte was used in this area for 99- exchanges because it appears in Ma Bell's officially recommended exchange names guide from 1955. But many cities deviated from the Ma Bell guide for certain exchanges, and I am sure Kansas City had a few.
Bad scan. !955:
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:50 am
by Tosspot
Neat.
Westport/West Plaza landlines are often 931. My dad's was for twenty years. My workplace on the Plaza is 753 - although the phone company is more loose and free with assigning a 753 to the Westport area and so forth now as well.
By the way... that commercial... "for better living now and better value later, call standard improvement company at Westport One, 7510. Seeing as how that commercial ran over the course of years through my childhood, it's ingrained.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:03 am
by omenapt
WEird! I can still remember my phone number from 1966 in Cleveland Heights , Ohio YE2-2182
(Yellowstone)
When we moved here, it was JA3 XXXX !
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:05 am
by omenapt
What i meant to say was "Weird, i never new there was a Yellowstone here in KC as well as Cleveland!"
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:49 am
by username
Thank you! Great image.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:03 pm
by Sportster
Westport One - Seventy One Hundred.
Name that number!
Sportster
...its the standard
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:59 pm
by Tosspot
Sportster wrote:
Westport One - Seventy One Hundred.
Name that number!
Sportster
...its the standard
I mentioned it upthread though not by name - Standard Improvement Company. I guess it pays to run the same commercial repeatedly for thirty years.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:19 pm
by KCKev
Still remember my Grandma's number at 17th st and Washington
Grand 1-1570
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:18 pm
by butter_breath
Growing up on 20th Quincy my number was chestnut 1 5920 back in 1958. My grand mother that lived at 24th and Quincy was Wabash 1. My other grandmother at 18th and Spruce was Jackson 3.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:11 am
by DanCa
Tosspot wrote:
Neat.
Westport/West Plaza landlines are often 931. My dad's was for twenty years. My workplace on the Plaza is 753 - although the phone company is more loose and free with assigning a 753 to the Westport area and so forth now as well.
By the way... that commercial... "for better living now and better value later, call standard improvement company at Westport One, 7510. Seeing as how that commercial ran over the course of years through my childhood, it's ingrained.
You forgot the "boom ba boom ba boom" part! I remember that from when I was a kid, but I don't think anyone used the name prefixes by the '70s when I remember this commercial
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:06 am
by aknowledgeableperson
Cyclops wrote:
after that, I'll have to find the old phone book... AKP? Highlander?
I have nothing. Didn't most of the names used follow the names of the area using the prefix or the street the location was centered on?
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:53 pm
by dangerboy
y'all are really showing your ages....
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:21 pm
by aknowledgeableperson
If you are lucky someone will be saying the same thing to you 30 years from now.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:34 pm
by dangerboy
aknowledgeableperson wrote:
If you are lucky someone will be saying the same thing to you 30 years from now.
yeah, when i talk about growing up in a house with a land line...
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 2:05 pm
by mlind
dangerboy wrote:
yeah, when i talk about growing up in a house with a land line...
I remember when some people still had party lines because they were cheaper.
In KCK (as a kid), my number was Finley 1-7433. My grandparents had Drexel 6299 and then Drexel 1-6299 from the 1940's until 1989. I don't remember when they added the '1'. The prefixes were definitely attached to geographic areas. I'm so old that remember when my address was Kansas City, 2, Kansas. No zipcode.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:23 pm
by KCFutbol
mlind wrote:
I remember when some people still had party lines because they were cheaper.
In KCK (as a kid), my number was Finley 1-7433. My grandparents had Drexel 6299 and then Drexel 1-6299 from the 1940's until 1989. I don't remember when they added the '1'. The prefixes were definitely attached to geographic areas. I'm so old that remember when my address was Kansas City, 2, Kansas. No zipcode.
I'll give you some company. TErrace 3545, Omaha, 24, Nebraska.
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:00 pm
by towncow
You forgot "Standard Bom-ba-bom-ba-bom Improvement Company"
HIland 4-1149
Re: Kansas City telephone exchange names
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:19 pm
by enough
ok, i can play, too. je(fferson) 1395. va(lentine) 5247. then, about 1956 or 57, va(lentine) 1-5247. kansas city 2, missouri. all-digit dialing? i've forgotten when that came in. sometime in the mid to late 60s?
oh -- and it was westport (1-) 71 hundred. quaint of standard (aaawk) (dum-da-dum-da-dum) im-prove-ment comp-nee to hold on to that jingle after all these years.
(and i'm nowhere close to being a fossil.)