re: #287 William Lewis

We had four digits within the local SHerman exchange my first year or two of school. Say 1970ish. Then it went to five until Jr high? High School? Somewhere in there they upgraded the switches downtown and we went to all seven numbers.

My mom grew up in a Mayberry type town of about 400 people. Everyone would call the dispatcher who sat on the second floor above a general store (which was also the post office) to ask if she had seen their husbands recently from her perch above the only intersection in town.

ETA: Ok, Mayberry in the sense that the Black people were not really considered part of the population.