re: Old School phone calls

The town my grandparents lived in had 4 digit calling into the 70s. My hs gf had a party line, made for some awkward calls.cause someone was always listening :)

We had it when I was a younger. Then they added a digital, then two more.

My grandparents were on a party line until the 1980s.

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Baton Rouge was 504, but it was still a long distance call to New Orleans.

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Still was in late 90’s. CSB: in college at LSU I had dial up so I selected a new orleans server thinking it would be faster because BR folks all using the BR server. I didnt realize it was long distance and got a $1000 bill the next month. Called and complained to bellsouth and instead of only deleting the charges they also gave me a $1000 credit so I didnt pay a phone bill for a long time. Poor kid College wins

I am your age. We had to dial like the following:

867-5309

You did not have to include area code. Sometime in the 2000's they made us start dialing the area code, even for local calls. I assume it has to do with the phone companies becoming all digital and the fact they eliminated "long distance" calling.

Edit: If you mean only dialing "5309" it didn't happen in my area in the 80's but I think my parents mentioned it was that way back earlier on in the 60's.

Tangipahoa parish, early/mid 70's, only 4 digits local and pay phones were a nickel.

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Weren't party lines where you could call multiple numbers on a call to have a group chat?

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No a party line is when multiple residences all utilize a singular phone line. When you picked up your receiver you could hear your neighbors’ conversation if they were on the phone. Each house had a separate number so the phone did not ring in every house on the line if one house was called. I think most phones were on a party line at some point but they were phased out as residential phones became more commonplace. By the 70’s only us country folk still had party lines.
My cousins and I would sneak around and eavesdrop on the neighbors, who really never talked about anything interesting so I don’t know why we bothered.

I grew up in the city of Plaquemine in the 60’s, we had only 4 digits

I can remember phone numbers beginning with these 3 prefixes when I was a kid in N.O. and there were several more that escape me.

Twinbrook
Jackson
Whitehall

We had Dickens and some others I can't recall in Baton Rouge.