1914 Pinckneyville Phone Directory
First off, THANK YOU Mike, for
sharing your find with all of us!
Also a special "THANK YOU" to
grandpa Ed, for the descriptive.
The photos on this and the following pages are from one of the first telephone directories for the county. Unlike now, only the more affluent could afford a phone then, so this will give you a partial understanding of how 'wealthy' your ancestors were, as well as verifying where they lived.
The listings are followed by the number as well as the location of the phone... such as: business, (plus what type!) , rural, residence, etc. Pinckneyville, Cutler and Du Quoin were all listed in the same book.
The phones used then were not the sleek, attractive
devices we use now. They were housed in a large, rectangular, wooden
box about two foot long, 10" wide and 6-8" deep, which hung on the wall.
Sometimes they were placed quite high on the wall, causing the shorter people to
use a step-stool to reach them. One of the reasons I was given for
this was the line coming into the house was quite expensive; thus if you could
eliminate a few feet of it, you saved money.
On the right hand side of this 'box', was a crank handle. This handle was
how you dialed.
At first, no 'dialing' was used... you simply picked up the ear-piece
(attached by a long cord to the left side of the box), positioned your mouth as
close as possible to the 'speaker' (a conical device on the top side of the
box), and gave the handle a short crank. This alerted the operator that someone
wanted to put a call through, and she did the necessary hookup. Later, as
the system became more refined, the crank handle would 'dial' the number for
you, unless you messed it up!
The numbers were referred to as "Longs" and "Shorts". A Long ring was a complete turn of the crank, while a Short was a half turn. If you turned a 'smidgen' past the half, it would go through as a Long, causing you to get a wrong number. Most people weren't upset by getting a wrong number, they would simply chat awhile then start over.
There wasn't privacy on the lines then.
Everyone that had a phone on your "line" would hear the rings when a call was made. Yes, there was quite a bit of
eavesdropping! Try to imagine yourself listening when a call came
through... was that 2 or 3 longs? 4 or 5 shorts? When in doubt, many
would answer regardless, usually telling who they were and asking if the call
was for them.
This was conference calling at its best!
If any of the names are unclear for you, email me and I
will verify it for you. I left the entire page so you could see the 'ads'
of the times. These name listings WILL NOT appear in the search
engine!