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telephone party lines

E

ericlb

Well-known Member
probably none left now in this country but back in the 30 s thru 50 s they were more common than not, especially in the rural areas ,something i heard was even though each phone on the party line had its own ring series it was aggravatingly common for other users on the same line to listen in on your private call hoping for some juicy tidbit of gossip so.. older people did any of you set up something with a buddy deliberately to be overheard by others listening in? just to give them something to listen TOO?
 
I'm 40 and we had a party line. Beulah Ackerman was always nosing in. Old biddy. I don't remember what our ring was, but I still remember the phone number - 285-2443. You had to repeat it when you called long distance so they could bill you right.
 
You just never had private conversations on a party line. Do you on a cell phone (NSA)?

As teenagers we used to like to gossip outrageous things about people we knew were probably listening. It was a hoot to say something like "I heard Mrs. Barkley has a boyfriend" and then hear her gasp. If she didn't hang up you just keep it up "I hear he's a drunk". Then I lost my telephone rights.
 
we had a party line in the sixties, phone no was 16F14. 2long rings 2 short rings. We got a rotary phone in 64. but still a party line, new no was PI3-4336. I used to listen to the neighbor ladies gossip, and then told Mom the juicey stuff. Good times, lol
 
I remember party lines, we had a old man nabor that would listen in on everybody talking then go tell everybody in the country what was said. My mother went to visit her sister in Ala. I was talking to a friend and told my mother had met a old man in Ala. and had run away to get married, when mom got home and heard about it she almost beat me to death if I was 14 years old, whooping almost as bad as the time I killed her bannie rooster with a sling shot and a green plumb.
 
I think we paid to get private line in 1994 or so. My aunt used to hear the neighbour pick up and would immediately say "I'm pregnant but I have no idea who the father is" she said it was always fun at church the following week.
 
Folks had a party line till about 1980. Paid the extra each month to be able to use the phone when needed, not wait till the neighbors were not using it.
 
Party lines here til the late sixties and it was sort of the sixties version of internet I guess. With quite a few neighbours sharing the line you could listen in and hear the news. Of course everybody knew that what they said was likely heard by others so most conducted their speech accordingly. Turn the crank and ask the operator for line 5, ring 3. Branded on my brain.
 
Early version of Facebook . How many kids with smart phone can deal with a rotary phone? Also a great way to call for help or check on lost kids
 
IN Geyserville, CA and other areas around here they had party lines up until the mid 80s. the ranch my girlfriend lived on the line was just for the ranch and the 3 or 4 families out there. The one on Rockpile Ranch had quite a few people on it.
 
We had a party line in the late 50's. Our phone was four rings. Still remember the number 4509. We had two sisters who would take up a lot of time. I was listening to their conversation one day. Then I heard one say. Someone is listening in, I hear them breathing. Stan
 
Last one I heard of was my Grand Mother, who had a party line up until 2011 when she passed. Granted, she was the only on on it, but it was still a 'party line'. Never lived in a time when party lines were overly prevalent, but have certainly heard the stories.
 
Ours was 10 to 15. I remember, if you had to make an emergency call and some people were already talking.....you just jiggled the cradle about few times and everyone knew to hang up(Emergency call).

I think ours was 3 longs and 2 shorts.
 
6613---one long, three shorts. Had to call "Central" and talk to the operator to connect with a number outside your party line. Ours was an eight party party line we got in the late 40s. I wasn't old enough to be creative with the eavesdroppers, but was old enough to be annoyed with them. I rarely "listened-in" myself as I really wasn't interested in what others had to say, and my mother frowned on it as well. One old man had nothing better to do, so he listened to every call. He had emphysema, so his wheezing was a dead giveaway. We'd say, "Mr. Tom, please hang up and let us talk." He never did, of course. Wish I had thought of some way to twist his tail.

The line had to be not in use before you could ring a number. Some of the women could talk for hours, tying up the line and not allowing others a chance to make a call. If you had an emergency you had to beg them to hang up. Sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn't. Usually they would, simply because they wanted to be able to pick back up and learn all the juicy details of the "emergency". Lots of these old busybodies were real disappointed when party line went away.
 
Grandparents farm had a party line, that was something with the others on the line, even later on private lines, some of the anonymous clean fun pranks you could pull off. The telephone was definitely a source of entertainment sometimes. I remember when on the receiving end of the prank, some would use a referee's whistle to ward them off.
 
We had a party line up to the late 60's. There were 3 of us on it, my aunt & uncle across the street, and another family across the street. The other family was constantly on the line. There was no way to know if it was in use without picking it up. As soon as they would hear someone pick it up, they would very rudely say "Hang up, we're on the phone"! Like, no one would figure out who they were! LOL

I remember there was a procedure to call someone on the same party line. Had to dial their number, then hang up, listen for the ring to stop, which meant they had answered, then pick up and hope they were still there!

Well as a little kid, my parents told me that the phone was NOT a toy! If I played with it, the operator would turn it off and we would never have a phone again! One day I was trying to call my cousin across the street, did something wrong, the operator came on asking "What number did you dial?" I hung up as fast as I could!

Scared me to death!!! I just knew, that was it, no more phone for ever!!! I never told anyone about it, but I didn't touch that phone for months! LOL
 
We had party line well into the 1990s.

Actually still have the party lime phone in use on the wall.

We had the better phones tho, they only rang when your lime was called, they could figure it out and not ring for the other line calls.

Was fun working with BBSes and Fidonet back then, while on a party line.

Paul
 
friend was on a 4 party line; other 3 were sisters (not his). Between 8:30 & 4 o'clock he never attempted to use the phone. If he needed a tractor part he just drove to town to see if they had it. It was that way year round for more than a decade. You wanted to talk to'm during those hours, you had to drive there!
 
Hi I think there was party lines round here in Manitoba in the 80's, That Was before I moved to Canada, our old dutch neighbor said they had it when they came here. The biggest problem they had was the line was shared with the local fertilizer/custom spraying company. He said if tractors were in the field, it could be days before you could get a free line and still be within sensible hours to make a call to somebody at night. The phone was busy with guys constantly calling there for stuff.
Regards Robert
 
We had them in Oz. Your ring was a Morse letter. Ours was W. Exchange was a long ring on a clear line.

As for privacy - - .

But there were worse problems. To set the scene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Flying_Doctor_Service_of_Australia

And the RFDS really opened up communication over a very isolated area.

Running a courtship over such an open network apparently was interesting - for all listeners.
 
Party lines here in north west Ohio were common into the 1980's .
When growing up when we would pick up the phone to dial you would
need to listrn first then dial . A lot of niebors would be talking
english and then change to german boy that was agervating.
 
Language at a higher level of security

Apparently Winston Churchill's cover for phone calls to French hierarchy just before the fall was via a couple of officers who spoke Swahili
 
We had a party line for a few years before it went private. The system had a timer on it that would shut off the phone if you went over the limit. When it would shut off, the neighbor woman would cuss the phone company and start dialing her mother back. We learned that if we dialed just one number while she was dialing, he call would not go through. Then the woman would give the neighbors a general cussing out because we needed to use the phone. Was sure glad when the phone went private so we didn't have to deal with her.
 
Old Charlie Martinek used to always listen in, one day Aunt Emma had had enough, she yelled "Charlie get off the phone!!" Long pause, he said "This aint me, it's my wife!" 1061-J-2, two rings.
 
I get a kick out of party line stories. When I was a kid our ring was 2 longs and a short. We had a party line until the mid 90's. From about 1 o'clock until 3 you knew you couldn't get on the phone because Ethel and Gladys were watching their soap opera.
 

I worked in the telephone switch room in the 70's early 80's. The old electro-mechanical switch had capacity for 16-party lines, but we only used 2-party. Last party lines were phased out in mid-70's.
 
We had a party line on the farm. Number was 6-2007. Old lady across the street was the only other one on it and she never called anyone. When she sold her farm the guy that bought it was on more, but still no problems with it.
 
We didn't get upgraded to a party line until mid 60's. Prior to that the operator asked for the number you wanted and connected you.My aunt was a phone operator and new more about everyone's business than anyone else in town.When we finally got a part line and a dial phone if you called someone on the party line you had to dial the phone and hang up. You would here it ring the other person and when the ring stopped you knew they had answered the phone.
 
In 1986 when I bought my land I was on a party line however the turn of fate they discontinued the party line before anyone else got on it. Had someone else moved in the area before 1990 I would have had to share a line. I wasn't out in the middle of nowhere either. I was 30 miles east of Dallas.
 
Haskell, Texas, around the mid 50's. I was about six at the time and to make a call we picked up the phone, waited for the operator to say "number please" and gave them the three digit number. I really do think her name was Sarah. It was much like Mayberry in the series. I don't know or remember about the party lines there and how many were on one line, but it must have been a bunch. Most any time we used the phone we had to wait until it was clear. I do remember one time when my mother needed to talk to my dad at his work place she got on the phone and asked the operator to "butt in" as it was an emergency. The people on the line had to hang up and then the call was connected.

The more I think about it, if someone was talking we could listen, you only got the operator when the line was clear.

We moved to Lubbock in 1958 and life got complicated, as our phone number went from 3 digits to 5, and then just a short time later to 7. Now it has evolved into 10 in some areas.

On a side note: I worked for a doctor in the mid 70's who had a phone in his car. It had a normal looking handset but with a push to talk button. He would drive and listen to so-called private conversations between other affluent people on the same system. I don't think, but don't know, if a listener could be detected on that system. He had to disconnect and reconnect as he drove through different areas, wasn't an automatic hand off like it is now with cell phones.
 
Yesterday I was showing to a visitor where the crank phone was on the wall in our house. I was eight years old when the crank phone went away, to be replaced with a rotary. I don't remember what the longs and shorts was though. Our new number for the rotary was TH3-5501 but was changed to 843-5501 a few years later. The party line went away in the late 70's when the new line was buried. In the last few years of the overhead wires and party line the condition of our line wasn't worth a hoot and when the wire would break somewhere along the road I would get the fence stretcher and fix it myself. If the wire was down I couldn't go to the neighbor's house to make the call because their phone was down too so making a call to the company involved going to a neighbor who was on a different exchange and making a long distance call to our home exchange. Then I had to pay the neighbor for the long distance call. Right here where I live I am on Albert City but the neighbor a half mile north was on Sioux Rapids, the neighbor a mile west was on Rembrandt and a neighbor a mile and a half south was on Storm Lake. Today I am still in the middle but it is cell towers.
 
We got our phone (rotary dial, no operator assist on local calls) in about 1955. We only heard our ring (one long) and someone elses (2 shorts), but there were more people than 2 on the line. Pretty polite, for the most part. You picked it up, and if someone was talking, you hung back up. Wait a minute or so, pick up again, and "some old heifer" (dad's description) would say, "Well, we'd better ring off, someone needs the phone." And the next time you picked up, it would be clear. Once, dad just picked up and said "I need the phone to call the vet"- he heard several clicks, and the line was clear.

Grandma lived in a neighboring town with an operator- you dialed 0 and asked for 96X- if Grandma wasn't home, the operator often knew where she was, and would advise on the best time to try again.
 
The party line at home was not much of an issue, as I remember. One time, prior to 1973, when my girlfriend and I used the phone a lot, the old fellow down the road broke in to call the vet for a sick cow. Ironically his farm is the one I ended up buying, and that's where I've been for 30+ years.

Before we bought this place, I had built a new house in 1978 on the corner of the home farm, back up the road a mile. I didn't even know we had a "party" line until I installed a second phone, thrown out at work. Turned out somehow the phones needed to be coded. I made a long distance call on this phone, and the other party got billed for it.
 
Yeah, had one of those for a number of years before they finally got modern. Had SEVEN parties on the line. Three different rings on our side of the line, other side had rest. Always had to listen for dial tone before dialing. But if you were close enough to the handset you could hear conversations even when handset was on the hook. Had a couple old ladies on the line who could monopolize the line daily. Had to go thru operator for all long distance calls - (all calls beyond a few miles) - Neighbors a mile away in two directions were long distance. About everything was toll calls for us. Phone was used sparingly at best. Most frequent call was the AI guy.
His number was VIckeryville 152.
 
We had a party line crank phone on the wall until mid 1970s when Bell bought out the local phone company and slowly converted everyone to rotary dial phones but still on a party line and when you called long distance after the beep you had to say the number you were calling from. There was a retired widow lady that was on the same line as we were and her hobby was listening to everyone else's conversations. The one good thing about the party line was if there was an emergency like a fire you just called the Operator and she/he would generate one very long ring on every party line in the area and people would pickup the phone and operator would say "Fire emergency at John Smith's farm" and everyone would rush to assist. This was pre "911" days.

JimB
 
If you were standing right next to it you could hear a light tick when the other lines were ringing.

Was 4 on our line early on, was just 2 at the end.

My aunt in the next phone co over had the deal where you had to listen to how many rings to see if it was you call or for the neighbors.

Paul
 
We had a party line until the mid 70's but we all had a 7 digit phone number. Dad would want to use the phone and the neighbors would be on the line to the IH dealer, AGAIN. Funny thing is that we never spent that much time on the phone to our Case dealer! We could dial 7955 and hang up the phone and it would ring in the barn or the house depending where the call originated. It was pretty handy. Grandpa once heard a neighbor tell another that he had some corn cribbing for sale. Grandpa called him up and asked what he wanted for it! The story is he wasn't impressed!
 
When I was a kid listening in on a party line was called "rubbernecking".
There were a few old ladies known for doing that; one of which also wrote the local news column for the newspaper. I often wondered whether or not some of her "news" came from rubbernecking.
I think that term nowadays is more commonly associated with motorists taking long looks at accidents or pretty girls while driving.
 
We didn't have a phone till I was in the 9th grade. It was a party line and our ring was two longs and a short I think. Seems people always
Listened in.
 
We had a party line until 1978. "Private" lines were more expensive. To ring on your party line, you would dial 363 and the number and hang up. The phone would then ring. When it stopped ringing, you would the know the other party answered.
As a kid, I would listen in on the ole hens gabbing away. They would hear me and say....someone is listening....you better hang up.
 
We had a party line until about 1970. Could never use the phone. Every time we picked up the phone to use it, the folks down the road would scream "We're on the phone, hang up".

When I was stationed in Germany in the '80's, the folks there had meters attached to their phones/lines at the phone that resembled odometers that clicked off units while in use provided by talk battery so that they could keep track of their usage for billing. One of the guys I was stationed with in Mannheim had an apartment out on the economy like I did instead of living in the barracks. His apartment was in the basement of the owners home, and he tapped into their line and used it. He got caught one day when the owner noticed his meter clicking off when no one was using the phone, so the owner reported it to the Polizei, whom monitored and caught the guy, whom was prosecuted and went to prison in Germany. He was still in prison when I left and the Army had plans of trying him when he got out for being AWOL, and whatever else. He was going to have to do some time in either the Coleman Stockade or be shipped back to Leavenworth, and then after serving that time, still serve out the rest of his enlistment as a PVT, and then be dishonorably discharged...over an illegal party line.

Mark
 
Grandparents here on the farm had a party line until the 70's, their ring was two long, one short. I thought the number was Garden9-3912 (same as ours still) when I dialed in. Grandma really missed talking to Edie next door when they went to a private line, until they both figured out they could just call. I think those two would have loved Facebook today!

In an extremely remote area of the plant at work, we still have rotary dial phones in use- I always show them to the young kids- most have never used one and don't know how to dial!
 
agonair now that you mention it we had the same arrangement for awhile. Dial the three number code, then the number and hang up. If the other party didn't answer you picked up and hung up again. We didn't have that setup for very long. We still had party line after that though. My great aunt was a part time telephone operator in a small local town and she knew all of the town gossip before everyone else did. LOL
 
We had a party line back in the 50 when I was a little kid. My grandmother was on it, she lived next door. Down the road a bit was a "crabby" couple who always gave us kids a hassle if we were on their property and we always tried to "trick" them with something. Anyway one evening it was decided to ask my grandmother over to diner, a short walk to our house, so my father called her and said "come and get what the cat dragged in while it' hot", well it turned out Mrs. crabby had picked up the phone to listen in. We all laughed about that for a long while after, still tell the story as you can see. Tom
 
js305... When I was a kid, probably about 10-12 years old, would have been mid '60s, I got a multi band radio for Christmas. It could pick up all kinds of transmissions, mostly listened to police calls. But there was a very narrow band that could pick up mobile phones. I quickly learned those conversations were a lot juicier than the police radio! If my parents had known what I was hearing, they would have smashed that radio to pieces!
 
We had a telephone starting in 1938. The first was a ten Party line and later dropped to 4. All we had to do was pick up the receiver and jiggle the hook and say " I wanna talk to my Grandma" and we were connected to her line. Simple time, simple lives.
we also got running water when rural electrification ran lines more than 3 mile out of town. No more going out to get your bath water or using the out house. Running water was a miracle.
 
When we moved to the farm we had a party line but it was the improved version you only heard your phone ring when you had a call and IIRC there was only 2 or 3 on the line. Also remember that if you made a long distance call you had to tell'em your number so they knew who to bill. We had General Telephone and in general the service was pretty bad. We had an issue with not getting calls, Dad was an OTR truck driver and was missing dispatch calls. He got upset and told them we had to have a private line, they said they couldn't do it, he told them to come and take the phone out, they allowed we could have a private line. They put a gizzmo in the basement called a carrier, as they explained it translated our calls to a different frequency allowing them to send multiple calls on the same line. The next problem was the carrier, one summer it went bad every time it rained, so we were still missing calls and dad dispatches. Eventually someone from the phone company got ambitious and crawled up the phone pole and taped up the bare wires so the rain stopped shorting out the line and killing the carriers at about $1,200 a pop. Still had problems with the carrier, after much complaining we got a private line on the primary side (no carrier) that was fine until new folks moved into the neighborhood and we ended back up on the carrier. It took another threat of leaving them to get back on a real line again.
 
On the crank phone the number was 2411. a long and a short. When bought my place, was on a 10 party line. Neighbor lady across the road liked to talk. She lives in town now and still likes to talk.
 
When I built the house we are living in now we had a party line for a year. That was after waiting a year to get that. Four houses on one line. That was 1992 if you can believe that. It was the next best thing to not having a phone at all. Ring identifier was two short and one long for us and then all the kids eavesdropped on calls. It was like taking a bath in public.

Greg
 
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