Nightly glow: from phone booths to smartphone screens

@ Mark Ollig


Richard Busteed of New York received US Patent 282,841 titled: “Telephone Cabinet” Aug. 7, 1883.

It was an enclosure designed to house telephones in public locations outside homes and offices.

His patent says, “I provide a cabinet four or five feet square if rectangular in form.”

Busteed’s patent diagram shows a door, a window, an air ventilator, a writing shelf, and a wall-mounted telephone.

William Gray installed the first coin-operated public telephone at Hartford Bank in Connecticut Aug. 13, 1889.

He received US Patent 408,709 for “Coin Controlled Apparatus for Telephones.”

Originally, payphones used a “post-pay” system, which allowed users to complete calls before depositing coins, as instructed by an operator.

Early 20th-century regulators referred to payphones as “pay-station telephones.”

Outdoor coin payphones began appearing on city streets in 1905.

In 1922, the number of public pay stations in Minnesota was 2,094, and by 1926, it had increased to 2,782, per the Minnesota Railroad and Warehouse Commission.

In the 1940s, the Bell Telephone System widely used Western Electric three-slot rotary-dial payphones, including the wall-mounted 233G and desk-mounted 234G models.

These sturdy phones accepted nickels, dimes, and quarters, featuring a secure coin vault in the base and a rotary dial in the upper housing.

A separate “subset” box, usually mounted in the booth or on a nearby wall, contained the ringer, induction coil, capacitor, and wiring.

In the mid-1950s, the Bell System manufactured the Airlight Outdoor Telephone Booth.

It had an aluminum frame with tempered glass walls, an illuminated sign that said “telephone,” fluorescent lighting, writing shelves, and ventilation louvers.

The booth also offered shelter from the rain.

Many telephone companies, including the Winsted Telephone Company, used an Airlight booth.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Automatic Electric Company manufactured the LPC-86-55 three-slot rotary-dial payphone, widely used by independent telephone companies, including in Winsted.

The LPC-86-55 was built with a heavy enamel steel case and an armored handset cord.

Across the top were slots for nickels, dimes, and quarters, each routed through an escrow chute and held until the telephone company’s central office signaled a collection or return.

The LPC-86-55 payphone had a coin return chute and a locked vault door with a removable cash box.

It operated on semi-postpay logic: callers heard dial tone when they lifted the handset, but the payphone’s transmitter was shunted (muted) up until the central office equipment confirmed payment.

Coin deposits were indicated by distinct sounds: one “ding” for a nickel, two “dings” for a dime, and a deep, reverberating sounding “gong” for a quarter.

Once the called party answered and the appropriate coins were deposited, the central office reversed the line’s battery polarity, removing the shunt and allowing for two-way conversation.

At the end of the call, signaling from the central office sent coins either into the payphone’s vault or back through the return chute.

The front panel featured a rotary dial and an instruction card with the old Winsted Telephone Company phone number: 485-2111 (612 area code).

Winsted’s payphone numbers initially used the 612-485-9xxx range.

The 612 area code was introduced in 1947, and Winsted switched to 320 in 1996.

Western Electric introduced the Fortress in the mid-1960s, a secure single-coin slot payphone that became widely deployed across the Bell Telephone System by the late 1960s.

The Automatic Electric Model 120 payphone was manufactured from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s.

It was a fortress-style, single-slot payphone that accepted nickels, dimes, and quarters, and it was widely used by independent telephone companies such as Winsted.

In Winsted, before 1986, the infrastructure supporting these payphones was wired to pay-station trunks on the telephone company’s Leich (pronounced “like”) electromechanical voice switch.

For long-distance and operator-handled calls, the Leich switch had dedicated trunking that interconnected with the Bell System’s Traffic Service Position System (TSPS).

TSPS is a centralized switchboard platform for automated operator assistance and payphone coin control.

Introduced in 1969, TSPS managed functions such as connecting calls, charging for long-distance calls, and signaling payphones to collect or return coins.

In 1977, Automated Coin Toll Service (ACTS) was added by AT&T.

ACTS used recorded voice prompts and electronic equipment to replace live operators, verify deposits, and signal the payphone to collect or return coins.

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1990s, many payphones were installed in Winsted.

One particularly popular payphone was in an Airlight booth on First Street North, just north of where Gene’s Red Owl grocery store (later G&K) was located.

The store building is no longer there, and that location now serves as the entrance to Security Bank & Trust Co.’s outdoor ATM and teller lane.

Other payphones were at St. Mary’s Hospital and Home, the Blue Note Ballroom, The Pantry Café, Kegs Bar, and the Corner Bar.

One was at the police station in the old city hall building, and another was at the Tom Thumb store.

Holy Trinity High School had a payphone located in the front lobby, to the left of the trophy case, which was used frequently during school hours and after evening events.

Another payphone was located on the property inside the Sterner Stables barn, which was later developed into the Winsted on the Lake housing complex.

And of course, there was the payphone in the front office of the Winsted Telephone Co.

At Winsted Telephone Company, we collected money from payphones monthly and weekly in busier locations to prevent the coin chutes from jamming.

We repaired dials, keypads, switches, relays, coin chutes, and replaced handsets and cords, and occasionally, we replaced the payphone.

We had our share of payphones marked “out of order” due to vandalism.

As more people started using cellphones, payphones were removed because they were no longer generating revenue.

By 2018, the FCC ended payphone reporting requirements.

In April 2022, a lost child in Andover used a working novelty payphone to dial 911 (no coins needed for an emergency call).

The payphone, installed by resident Brian Davis in his front yard, was the lifeline that helped reunite the child with his family.

Many of us can remember sliding open a payphone booth’s door, dialing a number, hearing the familiar dings and gongs of coins dropping, or, asking the operator, “I’d like to make a collect call.”

I asked my sons, who are ages 38 to 42, if they remember using a payphone:

Son number one said, “Once or twice.”

Son number two responded, “Many moons ago, the one in front of the Tom Thumb store comes to mind.”

Son number three mentioned, “I have. In high school . . . in 2005.”

I recall, many years ago, driving through downtown Winsted at night and seeing the soft, warm, and yes, comforting glow of the phone booth next to the grocery store.

Someday, our children may nostalgically look back on the soft, warm glow of their smartphone screens at night.