May 31, 2022 - The pay telephone has been around for a long time. I can recall that there was a pay telephone booth in the first floor of the courthouse. There was one in the Wyman Roberts Funeral Home here in San Augustine, Texas. These, of course, have been long gone. What happened to them?
The Connecticut Telephone Company had a payphone in their New Haven office in June of 1880. The fee was handed to an attendant. In 1889, a public telephone with a coin-pay mechanism was installed at the Hartford Bank in Hartford, Connecticut. It was a “post pay” machine; coins were inserted at the end of a conversation.
By 1902 there were over eighty thousand payphones in the United States. By 1905, the first outdoor phone booth was installed. In 1960, the Bell system installed its one millionth telephone booth.
The booths were a standard size, 36 inches by 36 inches, and 84 inches tall. They were rather expensive to install as they not only had a pay telephone, there was usually a fan and a light that came on as the door was closed. There was also a small seat and a shelf to write on.
Who would have thought that the pay telephone booths played a major part in a good number of movies over the years? They include the following:
In the Superman comic books, and live-action films, Clark Kent routinely used a phone booth to change into his Superman costume. Similarly, Underdog also changes into his costume from a shoe shine vendor using a telephone booth.
The opening sequence of the television show Get Smart features a telephone booth as the last in a series of obstacles guarding the Control Entrance.
In the 1969 The Brady Bunch episode, “Sorry, Right Number”, Mike Brady installs a payphone in his home after his children ran up a large phone bill.
The 1986 film Jumpin’ Jack Flash features Whoopi Goldberg’s character being abducted while in a phone booth by picking up the booth itself with a tow truck and dragging it through Manhattan streets.
In the Harry Potter books, and the films, there is a red telephone booth outside the Ministry of Magic that the wizards use to access the Ministry.
A telephone booth is used as a time machine in the Bill and Ted film franchise starting in 1989.
The 2002 film Phone Booth takes place in, you guessed it, a telephone booth. The main character is held hostage in it for a whole day.. He had been using the payphone booth to call his mistress so that his wife will not see the telephone number on their cellular telephone bill.
A Mojave phone booth in an isolated area of the Mojave National Preserve, miles from a paved road, was the subject of an internet meme, and a 2006 film, Mojave Phone Booth. The original Pacific Bell booth was removed in 2000, for nostalgia, Lucky225 assigned it number (760-733-9969) to an open conference bridge in 2013.
The popular song, Payphone by the band Maroon5, featuring Wiz Khalifa, released on their fourth studio album, Overexposed.
Back in the 1960s, it was a fad to see how many people could be crammed inside a telephone booth. The medal goes to a California college who managed to cram 32 students into one booth. Seems a little crowded to me.
We all know what killed the pay telephones – the cell phone. Almost everyone now days has a cell phone in their purse or pocket, and are used multiple times each day. Even seven or eight year old kids sport a cell phone for their pleasure. As for me, I kind of miss seeing a bank of pay phones in the airport or bus station as it takes me back to earlier days. But, that’s just me.
Now, what is Clark Kent supposed to use to change into his Superman outfit? Well, I guess that he will have to worry about that. Perhaps he can find a closet somewhere since there will be no more phone booths to use. Is that really progress?
