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OFF-TOPIC, but interesting if you're a trivia fan.

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 10:12:29 +1000, Gordon Woolf
<gwoolf.DeleteThis@netspace.net.au> dijo:

 >Some interesting stuff on your website, but isn't the correlation
 >between place names and dialing codes that you find so surprising just
 >that the numbers all started out as exchange names. I still recall my
 >first UK phone number from 40 years ago -- Loughton 1545. Then it
 >became LOU 1545, then 508 1545, and they dropped the letters from
 >phone dials. Now letters are back, and, guess what, 508 is still one
 >of LOUghton's codes, and it still tranlates back to LOU, though most
 >of the numbers there now have other digits in front such as 8508

The same thing happened in the U.S. and Canada, except that in most
areas we used just the first two letters + a number, followed by a
four-digit number. When I was a child our number was ATwater 3-3425.
Now that number would be 283-3425. When a business put their number on
a calendar or letterhead they usually wrote out the name, capitalizing
the first two letters.

A more interesting historical note that most USans probably aren't
aware of is the origin of the zip codes (postal codes). Long before
zip codes were created many cities had gone to a numbering system for
their postal stations and branches. Thus, the last line of our address
was "Portland 17, Oregon." When zip codes came in, the cities were
given a three-digit code and the branch office code was appended at
the end. Portland was given 972, so our old house is now in "Portland,
Oregon 97217."

The public thinks there is some mysterious method to the way the
numbers are created, like sequential zip codes must be geographically
very close together. In fact, when the cities originally created their
two-digit code for their branch offices, they just assigned them in
alphabetical order according to the name of the branch. We lived near
Kenton Station, which was number 17 on the list. Numbers 16 and 18 are
for branch offices alphabetically adjacent, but the actual branches
are located clear across town. Of course, the alphabetization scheme
was just for the original city codes; since then new stations have
been built and old ones torn down, so the numbers don't go perfectly
alphabetically any more. But if you look at an alphabetical list of
postal stations and branches for a U.S. city you can still see the
remains of the original numbering system.

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