First Dial Telephone in Covington

 It may not seem like it now, but it was big news when Covington first got telephone service where you could dial the number yourself, instead of going through an operator. Today we have push button cellphones, and dial telephones are a thing of the past. But not long ago, rotary dial telephone service was a long-awaited miracle. 

A big new building was built to hold all the direct dialing equipment, dial telephones were delivered and installed throughout town, and even a new printed telephone book directory had to be printed up with detailed instructions on how to dial calls yourself. 

All this happened in 1963, some sixty-two years ago. 

Click on the images to make them larger and more readable. 

Text from the above article

Cutover From Flash To Dial To Be Ready After 1 A.M.

     Dial telephones in Covington will be ready for use immediately after 1:00 a.m. Sunday, June 2. It marks conversion of the Covington system from the current flash type, where operators are the intermediary, to the ultra-modern dial system that eliminates 0perators for local calls and many long distance calls.

    There will be an official 'launching" of the system at the new dial headquarters on Massachusetts and E. Rutland streets at 7:00 p.m. Saturday. Mayor Ernie Menetre will place the first local call from the office to Mrs. Menetre at home.

     To pave the way for dial telephoning, a team of 15 Southern Bell workers have distributed booklets to every subscriber in the area explaining use of dial equipment. During the past six weeks these workers have personally called at all homes and offices to present customers with the information booklet. It contains all answers to questions about the new method of telephoning. It's title is "Spin the Dial and Span the Nation".

    This week more than 5,800 new dial telephone directories were mailed to phone subscribers. The numbers for exchanges in Covington, Madisonville, Mandeville and Lacombe will be in use after Sunday. The 5,800 directories represent an increase of 600 telephones over October, 1962, when 5,210 books were mailed.

     In the entire area. including Covington, Madisonville, Mandeville and Lacombe, there are more than 7,800 phone directories for dial service. Dialing may be used for all local calls and most long distance calls. However, the customer must dial "operator" to place collect or credit card long distance calls,  those for the numbers not known.

     Operators will be at the new equipment office, completed at cost of $1,500,000.

Customers dialing for information and to report trouble will reach personnel at the new building. To start long distance out of the area, first dial No. 1. This puts the caller into the proper 1,1 channel. Next, dial the area code number, followed by the 7-digit party number.

Within the area, in dialing distance, it is not necessary to the area number.

     For 4-party and 8-party lines the procedure on dialing is different. Consult the booklet. Those who did not receive a booklet may get one at the main office in Covington.

End of article

Here's a photo of Mayor Menetre making the first dial telephone call. 

A special building on Rutland Street had to be built to handle all the dialing and automatic switching equipment. It was a $1.5 million investment. 

Before direct dial service could begin, new phone directories had to be printed up and distributed. 

Phone operators in 1952: the way it used to be

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However, it wasn't too much longer after the introduction of dial phones that the "touch tone" phone was announced. The very next year in fact. 

Links of Interest:

Phone Company Building

Phone Lines Told The Growth Story

Covington Area Phone Book -1947

 A copy of the 1947 phone directory for Covington, Mandeville and Madisonville was recently made available for scanning. To view the phone listings and yellow page advertisements, click on the following link:

CLICK HERE for Adobe PDF version of phone directory.

To enlarge the above image, click here.

See also:

1946 Covington Area Phone Book 

Mandeville Residential Phone Listings - 1946

1959 Covington Phone Book Yellow Pages

Mandeville 1959 Residential Phone Listings

Madisonville Phone Book Listings -1959

Lacombe Phone Directory of 1959

Slidell Phone Book Listings -1956

Covington Phone Book -1959: Residential Listings

Mandeville Phone Book -1912

Slidell Phone Book Business Directory 1956

Phone Lines Told The Growth Story

In the 1980's St. Tammany was growing by leaps and bounds, and one of the most accurate indicators of that was the number of new installations of residential and business phone lines. That was a good measure back then, but not so much any longer today due to home phones being disconnected as a result of the prevalence and convenience of cell phones.

But decades ago, the demand for new landline phone service was a reliable sign of growth, especially business growth. More new phone numbers were needed, new area codes were needed to provide those new phone numbers, and telephone wires were being strung up everywhere. 

In the 1987 edition of the St. Tammany West Chamber of Commerce magazine, an article spelled out the growth in telephone lines and explained their significance. Here is the text from that article.

Phone Lines Tell The Growth Story (1987)

The number of new telephone lines, both in residential and business service, often tells the story of growth in a dramatic and conclusive manner. New fig­ures recently obtained by the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation reveal the area by area growth of St. Tammany between 1980 and 1986, as re­ported through the different telephone exchanges.

In January of 1980, Covington had 7824 residential phone lines and 2018 business phone lines, and six years later in 1986, those had increased to 10,526 residential and 3288 business phones. That represented a 34.5 per cent growth in residential phones and a 62.9 per cent growth in business phones for the Covington area exchanges.

Mandeville Increase

During the same six year time period, however, the Mandeville telephone exchange experienced a 53 per cent increase in residential phones (from 2751 in 1980 to 4214 in 1986) and a 164.4 per cent growth in busi­ness phone lines (from 570 phones in 1980 to 1507 phones in 1986).

Madisonville Area Growth

The really spectacular growth came in the Madison­ville phone exchange. At the beginning of the decade, there were 1261 residential and 108 business phones in the Madisonville area, and in January 1986, there were 2816 residential phones in service and an impressive 197.2 per cent growth in business phone service during those six years.

A large portion of that Madisonville growth took place in Beau Chene and the commercial areas along La. Hwy. 22.

Folsom Phones

Folsom underwent a 34.9 per cent growth in residen­tial phones during that period, as well as an 86.5 per cent growth in business phone service. Starting out with 1325 home phones and 111 business phones in 1980, Folsom had, by January of 1986, some 1788 home phones and 207 business phone lines.

Lacombe Lines

Lacombe had a similar percentage growth, some 37.9 per cent growth in home phones and 84.3 per cent growth in business phones during that time. Lacombe's exchange listed 1680 home phones in 1980 and 2316 of them in 1986, as well as 102 business phones in 1980, increasing those to 188 business phones by January of 1986.

Bush Phone Statistics

The Bush telephone exchange up in the northeastern corner of the parish showed the smallest percentage growth, with 29.4 per cent more home phones in those six years and 57.8 per cent more business phones.

The actual numbers for Bush started in 1980 with 656 home phones and 45 business phones, and came to 849 home phones and 71 business phones by January of 1986.

The total number of all residential phones in the parish in January 1980, came to 32,848, and six years later that residential category totaled 46,109 home phones, representing an average increase of 40.4 per cent.

Business Phones

In the business phone category, the totals for St. Tam­many parish were 6073 in January of 1980 and 10,935 in January of 1986, representing an increase of 80.1 per cent.

In a month to month breakdown of last year's (1986) phone totals, a slight decrease was seen in some busi­ness exchanges. The number of business phones in Sli­dell decreased between August and September, while in­creases continued in Madisonville, Covington and Mandeville.

Covington felt a two per cent increase in home phones between January and September of last year, while Mandeville felt a six per cent increase and Madisonville underwent a 4.2 per cent increase in home phones between those two months.

Some 83 new business phones were connected in the Mandeville exchange between January and September, and over 235 new business phones were connected in the Covington exchange between those two months, ac­cording to the figures. These are averages, of course, between old phones disconnected and new phones added.

Month to month decreases in the number of phone lines in service is nothing new, however. In June of 1980 there was a decrease in residential phones com­pared to the figures one month earlier, and decreases appeared again between July and August of 1983, be­tween October and November in 1984.

Big Increase in 1980-81

Significantly above average increases in the number of new residential telephones in service came between June and July of 1980 and between March and April of 1981. Significant increases in new business phone in­stallations took place between August and September and again between September and October of 1980, be­tween May and June of 1981, and between September and October of 1982. 

Other major percentage increase in new business phone connections took place between October and November of 1982, between March and April of 1983, and between September and October of 1983. Even the last two months, November and Decem­ber, of 1983 were busy for new business phone install­ations.

Since then, above average months for business phone connections in St. Tammany Parish have been March and May of 1984, with a whopping increase in August of 1984 and another busy month in April of 1985. Business phone installations continued to be above average in June and November of 1985, with April of 1986 the on­ly slightly above average business phone connection month for that year.

See also:

Phones For The Future  

Mandeville 1947 Phone Listings  

Madisonville Phone Book Listings 1947

West St. Tammany Phone Book Ads - 1947

Madisonville Phone Listings - 1946

1946 Covington Area Phone Book 

Mandeville Residential Phone Listings - 1946

Covington/Abita Springs Phone Book - 1947

Covington Phone Book 1947 - Second Half 

1959 Covington Phone Book Yellow Pages

Mandeville 1959 Residential Phone Listings

Madisonville Phone Book Listings -1959

Lacombe Phone Directory of 1959

Slidell Phone Book Listings -1956

Covington Phone Book -1959: Residential Listings

Mandeville Phone Book -1912

Slidell Phone Book Business Directory 1956

Mechanics As Art

 In 1991 the St. Tammany News Banner ran an article written by Colleen Collier spotlighting a top mechanic at Jahncke Shipyards in Madisonville. Here is an excerpt from that article.

 

 

Click on the image to make it larger and more readable. 

See also:

Photographs from Jahncke Shipyard 

Mandeville 1947 Phone Listings

Here are the 1947 Mandeville Phone Book listings. To view images that are zoomable to a larger size, CLICK HERE and follow instructions. 

Madisonville Phone Book Listings 1947

Here are the Madisonville Phone Book Listings in 1947.Click on the images below to make them larger and more readable.

 

Madisonville Southern Bell switchboard operators in 1952: 

Ernestine Chatellier and Theresa Stanga.  

Photo source - Iris Lulu-Simoneaux Vacante‎, Facebook Madisonville La. Historical Group

West St. Tammany Phone Book Ads - 1947

Here's the advertisements that appeared in the 1947 West St. Tammany Phone Book. To view images that are zoomable to a larger size, CLICK HERE and follow instructions.

Covington Phone Book 1947 - Second Half

Here's the second half of the 1947 Covington Phone Book. It includes listings for Abita Springs. To view images that are zoomable to a larger size, CLICK HERE and follow instructions.

Covington/Abita Springs Phone Book - 1947

Here's a link to the Covington/Abita Springs Phone Book listings for 1947.

CLICK HERE to view the phone book pages. Follow the instructions for zooming into the pages. 

Mandeville Residential Phone Listings - 1946

The list below gives the residential phone listings for Mandeville, LA, in the year 1946, seventy years ago. Click on the image below for a larger, more readable version. 

The entire 1946 phone book, including Covington and Madisonville, plus several pages of advertisements, is available as a PDF File BY CLICKING HERE.

These phone numbers are for historical information only and should not be used to try to call anyone or any business today. 

1946 Covington Area Phone Book

The 1946 Covington area phone book has been scanned and is available in a PDF file by clicking on THIS LINK. The first several pages are ads, then the residential listings begin. There is no alphabetical business listing section (yellow pages).

The phone book features both the business ads and residential listings for Covington, Madisonville, Mandeville, as well as Abita Springs. 

Madisonville Phone Listings - 1946

Below is a scanned image of the 1946 Madisonville phone book published seventy years ago ( and 13 years prior to the 1959 phone book posted a few weeks ago). Click on the image to make it more readable. 

As before, these phone numbers are for historical information only and should not be used to try to call anyone. 

1959 Covington Phone Book Yellow Pages

To view a PDF file of the 1959 Covington Phone Book Yellow Pages Business Directory, CLICK HERE.  Disclaimer: These ads contain phone numbers from 57 years ago, so the numbers are not up-to-date. This document is for historical information purposes only and should not be used to actually call anyone or any business. 

Here's the cover and some sample pages:

The business listings cover Covington, Folsom, Abita Springs, Madisonville, Mandeville and Lacombe. 

Just as an illustration, here is the list of hotels and motels you will find in this PDF yellow pages file from 1959:

• Dew Drop Inn, 330 West 29th Avenue
• Long Branch Hotel, Abita Springs
• Meyers Hotel and Cafe, East Gibson
• Southern Hotel, 428 East Boston
• Audubon Hotel, Lake St., Mandeville
• Georgian Manor Hotel, Mandeville
• Mandeville Hotel, Covington Highway
• Green Springs Hotel, Military Road
• Hurston's Pine Manor Motel, Mandeville Highway
• Jim's Courts, Claiborne Hill
• Mount Vernon Motel, Mandeville Highway

• Pine Manor Motel, Mandeville Highway
• Pretty Acres Motel and Country Club, Mandeville Highway
• Oak Park Motel, Hwy 190 Madisonville
• Cliff's Motel, Lake St., Mandeville
• Hollowell Motel, Big Branch
• Ozone Tourist Court, Mandeville Highway

Mandeville 1959 Residential Phone Listings

The phone book section featuring Mandeville area residential phone listings for 1959 are available in a PDF file format by clicking on the link below. They were scanned from the Covington Area Phone Directory for 1959 that included several communities. 

Disclaimer: These pages are for historical purposes only and should not be used for actually calling anybody. Although 57 years old, these numbers may be active for someone today, so the last digit has been left off.