Baby Boomer Alert: Happy Birthday to the Coin Operated Pay Phone!
The first coin-operated pay phone was installed in 1889 in Hartford, Connecticut at the Hartford National Bank. There had been pay phones before this date but you had to hand your payment to an attendant who then made the call for you.
In 1902 there were approximately 80,000 pay phones in use in the nation. By 2000 that number was around 2,000,000. With the advent of cell phones that number has dropped by over a million pay phone sin the last decade. Both AT&T and Verizon have exited the business and any pay phones you can find now are operated by independent businesses.
How many of you remember dropping a nickel (or dime or quarter) into a pay phone on a city street corner?