Going back in time
- Thread starter Barnyard
- Start date
Love the phone number. Reminds me of the time when I needed a new crankshaft for my Allis Chalmers IB and found one locally. On the cardboard box, which was more like wood, was printed the address of Allis Chalmers: Milwaukee 1 Wisconsin. Definitely NOS (new old stock).
Don McCombs
501 Club
Our first phone number was 4104. That’s it, just four digits.
staninlowerAL
501 Club
And "party line" phone service that meant sharing a common line with your neighbors. Each one had a prescribed number of rings (some short/some longer) to be able to know who the incoming call was for. No private conversations! Anyone could listen in if they wanted to "eavesdrop"....... Hey, I even remember wall mounted, hand crank telephones! We've come a long way...................... Stan 
Bill Hudson
501 Club
Our phone number growing up was 8L and later 2L8. Like Stan, it hung on the wall, party line and you cranked it.
I can remember 3262 which rang 4 short rings. You only heard the five ring types for your half. The same rings would be on the other half. To call a different exchange even if you could see their house was a toll call and to call across the country several different operators just to get there.
The 1 between Milwaukee and Wisconsin? The cities were divided up and given a number. It is a zone.
Bill, What are you going to do with the apron?
Many smiles on this one!
Vern
The 1 between Milwaukee and Wisconsin? The cities were divided up and given a number. It is a zone.
Bill, What are you going to do with the apron?
Many smiles on this one!
Vern
Our current ZIP codes were based on the old zones. ZIP stood for Zone Improvement Program. The old zone numbers became the last 2 digits of the ZIP code. The first 3, actually a 1-digit code followed by a 2-digit code, got you to a region (or area around one metro population center). Within the region, the smaller post offices that didn't have a zone number got numbers assigned in alphabetical order. ZIP codes created since them are given sequential numbers. (This is ignoring the "special" ZIP codes.)
Old grain sacks. There is an interesting one. In addition to the true grain sack and what we called a gunney sack, during WWII there was made some cotton print feed concentrate bags. Mother would ride along when Dad would go to get feed ground to check out the patterns and see if more than one bag of the same pattern was there. Or so I'm told, I can't remember that far back. I do remember that sacks were printed with many different names on them. Vern
staninlowerAL
501 Club
This is pretty far from Barnyard's original post but here goes one more. I remember sleeping on repurposed/salvaged fertilizer sacks that were made into bed sheets. Sacks were also used to make (sew) clothing such as shirts for the men and boys. Flour sacks were used for pillow cases, some even came with a pattern that could be hand stitched to make a decorative pattern. Such were the times back then, use what you had, throw nothing away that was useful and if you could make it (or make do) don't buy something because cash money was scarce. I could go on............
Stan
Dale Finch
501 Club
I still have 2 dishtowels that were made from large flour sacks...about 2-1/2 feet square & one has some embroidery on it. I think they were my grandmother's.
staninlowerAL
501 Club
I remember one brand of flour that came in cloth bags large enough for a pillow case and had a dish towel sewed into the opening so the buyer could remove the stitches to free the dish towel and still use the pillow case after emptying the flour.......a real bonus two-fer!! Grandma loved it. Stan