Operator, Hello, Operator Traditional Cache

The end of an era ... the last payphone

• In 1889, the first public coin telephone was installed by inventor William Gray at a bank in Hartford, Conn. It was a "postpay" machine (coins were deposited after the call was placed). Gray's previous claim to fame was inventing the inflatable chest protector for baseball.
• In 1898, the Western Electric No. 5 Coin Collector, the first automatic "prepay" station, went into use in Chicago. The depositing of coins before placing a call would gradually become the norm in pay phones until the introduction of "dial tone first" service in 1966.
• By 1902, there were 81,000 pay telephones in the United States.
• In 1905, the first outdoor Bell System coin telephone was installed on a Cincinnati street. It wasn't an instant hit; people apparently were reluctant to make private calls on a public thoroughfare. 
• In the 1950s, glass outdoor telephone booths began replacing wooden ones.
• In 1957, "calling from your car" was first tested in Mobile, Ala., and Chicago. Drive-up pay telephones proved popular and are still in use today.
• In 1960, the Bell System installed its millionth pay telephone. Today there are 2.2 million pay phones, down from 2.6 million in 1998. Local calls on pay phones also have dropped 30 percent since 1998.
• In 1964, when the Treasury Department decided to change the metallic composition of U.S. coins, it consulted with Bell Laboratories to ensure the new coins would still function properly in pay phones.
• In 1966, "dial tone first" service was introduced in Hartford, Conn. This essentially turned coin phones into emergency call stations because such calls could be made without first depositing coins.
• On Feb. 2, 2001, BellSouth announced that it's getting out of the pay phone business. That would make it the first major phone company to do so.

Sources: American Public Communications Council and AT&T

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