Those new outdoor phone booths are so doggone handy …

The advertisement below appeared in the August 6, 1957, edition the Panama City News-Herald. It appeared in numerous publications nationwide.

1957: Those new outdoor phone booths are so doggone handy...
1957: Those new outdoor phone booths are so doggone handy…

Cutesy ads like this promoted the expansion of Bell telephone booths throughout the 1950s.

doggone…

“It’s a dog’s life, all right. Waiting while she talks. Can’t blame her much, though. Those new outdoor phone booths are so doggone handy …”

Outdoor phone booths were not new to the United States in the 1950s, but they had not been especially common. During the 1950s Bell Telephone gradually rolled out sturdier outdoor booths made of aluminum and plexiglass, replacing and supplementing wood structures that had been more prone to the elements. Making this abundance of outdoor phone booths available proved to be a surprising success, providing as it did the benefit of making payphones available 24 hours a day. Indoor payphones, located in places like grocery stores and restaurants, were usually closed to the public in the wee hours of the morning or night. The availability of outdoor locations at service stations and public parks was just what highway travelers and transients passing through town needed to make contact with family or report perilous situations.

The Delaware County Daily Times, in its April 1, 1954, issue (page 31), reported a couple of what could be called success stories in which payphones were used to report emergencies or make contact. In one case a gentleman on his way to a fishing spot was happy to spot a phone booth at a service station, where he was able to call ahead and reserve a boat ahead of time (presumably boat reservations were competitive where he was headed). As he left he saw smoke and fire coming from a nearby building. He was able to use the phone to report the fire, which was quickly extinguished after firefighters responded to the scene.

Scenarios like this were novel in the 1950s, but according to Charles A. Garrett (author of the above-referenced Delaware County Daily Times story: “The story of the fisherman and the fire at the beginning of this article is only one of many favorable comments from truck drivers and other transients who have found a booth available when faced with an early hour emergency.”

According to AT&T the Bell companies had 50,000 outdoor phone booths in operation by 1954, up from 6,000 in 1945. This increase began in response to the post-war housing boom, during which the telephone companies’ ability to provide phone service to individual homes could not keep up with the number of houses being built.

But let the cute dog explain what made phone booths so valuable in the 1950s:

Next time you’ve forgotten something,
Or want to get something settled while it’s
fresh in your mind, just step inside a
convenient outdoor phone booth. You’ll
find more and more of them in public
places, along streets and highways–
so you can get in touch with anyone, any
time. It’s another way we’re working to put
the telephone in arm’s reach of
everybody, everywhere.



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