10 November 14

Happy Area Code Day! In 1951, the nation was first tied together with coast-to-coast direct dialing for telephone calls on this date. Some of us remember actual "dial" telephones, where a "0" took about ten times as long to register as a "1." Before your local area code was active, any long distance telephone calls had to be arranged through a human operator, and the cost for the call depended on whether you chose the "station-to-station" or "person-to-person"service. Around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, we did not have direct dialing from our homes until late in the 1950s.