The lettering thing 'splains a lot:
There was another reason as well. When it came time to match letters of the alphabet up with the numbers, putting 1-2-3 across the top made a lot more sense because it was the most natural way to get ABC in the top row. If 7-8-9 had been at the top, one of two things would have happened — the letters and the numbers would have run in opposite directions, or PRS would have been the first set of letters. Either arrangement would have seemed very odd, indeed. (From the cited article)
'Course, that comes from the day when telephone exchanges were all identified by geographic names: LExington 3-XXXX, FLushing 3-XXXX, MUrray Hill 7-, etc.
The "zero" was never used as part of the exchange number.
In Boulder CO at the time almost all numbers were HIllcrest 2, 3, or 4, and it was typical to write your number down as only the 2-XXXX or 3-XXXX (or 4-) and people would understand the first two "digits" were HI-. Our first number was HIllcrest 4-, which works out to 444- in today's terms --or actually, (303) 444-.
(At the time, Boulder CO only had a population of about 50,000, for those of you who do the math.)
Yeah, we had a party line for a while, but it was such a PITA, especially counting the rings when it rang, we finally decided to spring the extra moolah for a private line. And of course, other folks on the party line would pick up the phone and claim they miscounted the rings, sorry.
One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies, three ringy-dingies, was us.
And if you were mailing something to someone in Boulder, you could just address it as:
Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow
182576 Pine St.*
City
No actual City, no State, no Zip, no nuthin'.
And it would get to them.
Terry
* I didn't want to use anything that might actually be a house number on Pine St. Most house numbers were only 4 digits long.
