Remember when phone numbers started with letters?

One of the first things I had to learn growing up was my home phone number. I still remember it. MElrose 7-5833. The number I knew best, next to my own, was my Grandmother's. She lived a few miles south of us. Her number was STate 4-3437. Besides Melrose and State there was Liberty, Atwater, Chapel, Walnut, Clifford and Fleetwood, just to name a few.

Telephone numbers that started with words? Uh-huh.

We of a certain age remember when telephone numbers used to start with names instead of digits. The first two letters of the name were usually capitalized, and they corresponded to the first two digits of the phone number on a dial. This system started in the 1930s and lasted well into the '60s. Before that, three letters and four numbers were used. The phone exchange was prior to area codes and prefixes. The exchange names did more than provide a phone number. They identified the area of the city where you lived.

And, if you have ever wondered why telephones have letter designations it is a leftover from the days of alphanumeric phone numbers, when people needed to know which letters were covered by which numbers.

In the 1960s when the phone company began replacing the charming prefixes with a fully numeric system, a group called the Anti-Digit Dialing League was founded. This San Francisco group mounted a light-hearted campaign against the "dehumanization" of the telephone system through the elimination of prefix names.

I too liked it better when telephone exchanges had quaint names rather than lots of digits. Telephone numbers were almost poetic. They had character. They were easier to remember. Yes, those were simpler times.

Simpler as in listening to the Marvelettes hit song "BEechwood 4-5789" or watching an episode of "I Love Lucy" and seeing Ricky Ricardo dial MUrray-Hill 5-9975 when he was calling home.

Call Star researcher Cathy Knapp at (317) 444-6487. Follow her on Twitter: @IndyCathyKnapp.