Ruralite Cafe: Published 05/09/02

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Lessons learned from telephone books

When the new telephone book arrived in the mail last week, I didn't think much about such an ordinary experience. Updated directories arrive every year and have become one more way of marking the speedy march of time.

But after I took a second look, I realized this latest edition of names and numbers is much bigger and thicker than the ones when I first moved here. After growing up in Atlanta, where the size of a telephone book is analogous to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, I still remember my amazement when I picked up a 1970 local directory, which looked more the size of an anorexic Reader's Digest.

Luckily I didn't have to rely on fading memory alone to write about old phone books. Thanks to Herald Publisher Jim Gray, who apparently collects them, I had access to directories from 1963 to the present. Unlike some collections, Jim still uses this one.

A few months back when I needed to remember the name of the paint store that used to be on Skyland Drive, Jim consulted one of his reference volumes. "Clayton and Green, just like I thought," he said, providing me with a bit of background for a story I was writing.

Until 1983, Jackson County's phone books came courtesy of Western Carolina Telephone Co. The next year marked the arrival of Contel (Continental Telephone Co. of North Carolina), and GTE took over in 1992. Our directories have been sent by Verizon since Y2K.

That 1970 book amazed me because so many of the numbers in the book were long distance. Cashiers was a long-distance from Sylva, as were Cherokee and Whittier. The picture on the front was nice and homey ­ a dad with his small children. This year's offering is more commercialized, with advertisements crammed on both covers.

Jim's oldest edition is dated October 1963, which means it was printed a month before President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. Opening it at random, we find that the Tuckasegee Beauty and Barber Shop was on Main Street, as it is in the 2002 book. The phone number is still 586-2417, but the name has been updated to Tuckaseegee Beauty and Tanning Salon. Under the V's we see Vance Hardware, still a Main Street neighbor, and also Velt's Cafe, which was once located where Lulu's is now.

The 1971 phone book marked the appearance of real photographs on the cover instead of the stylized art popular on earlier editions. Whitewater Falls, purported to be the highest east of the Rockies, graces the 1975 book.

With 1976, and the country's Bicentennial, WCTC switched to a collage of silver dollars and documents notable in American history, like the Declaration of Independence. A sticky note in Jim's handwriting on the cover reminds him that one is a keeper: "Save. Centennial Issue," his note reads.

The last of the small format telephone books came out in 1978. There were still party lines in Jackson County then. A note on the cover, labeled "Important Notice, Sylva Customers Only" indicates that "Beginning at 8 a.m. on Monday, April 3, the access code for calling another party on your line will change. (Please see page 2 inside for the new code.)"

Jim and I aren't the only ones who find area phone directories intriguing.

Selected entries from a Western North Carolina Telephone Co. directory are printed in a book called "Blues & Roots, Rue & Bluets, A Garland for the Appalachians" written by Jonathan Williams and published in 1971.

My friend Linda Hardy gave me the book, which is a treasure trove of beautiful black-and-white photos by Nicholas Dean and interesting words Williams gathered in his travels through several mountain states.

The names gleaned from the telephone book include a U.S. president (Polk, James K.) and several still-familiar family names like Cope, Cody, Keener, Love, Moss, Wood and Painter.

Here are Williams' selections, punctuated as they appear in the book:

Applewhite Max; Bell Corydon; Chiltoskey Going Back Mrs; Cody Verlous; Cope Ode; Cox Plato; Crisp Gentry; Dalton Dock; Evitt Delphia Mrs; Flack Kolin; Foxx Zollie Rev; Game Gertrude; Gibson Pink; Good Colon L Rev; Gribble Geneva; Huggins Rass; Imperato Pat; Jones Vestal; Johnson John Bunion; King Hill; Keener Maiden; Kiser Julian (Bug); Keen Yeoman; Love Jeter; Mashburn Angeline; Muse O.U.; Moss Floda; Norton Paschal; Orr Deaver; Owl Frell; Painter Fern; Peek Benlon; Polk James K.; Pickens Excellent Fine; Picklesimer Turley; Queen Kenneth; Quiet Lily; Rogers Gas Island; Rainwater Veezey; Strong Hope; Sneed Cam; Shook Troy; Tweed Strang; Undergrowth Homer; Van Lyon; Webb Zero; Wold Maude; Womack Kibby; Whittle Chester; Ward Milas; Wood Cooter; and Youngbird Rufus. Though I didn't take time to look them up in this year's directory, I doubt many of those listings remain.

It would be a lot more time-consuming now to find out which ones are still in the book. Williams compiled his volume during a year when numbers from telephone customers across the area were lumped into one common alphabetical list. Now that our phone book is partitioned by cities, I'd have to search for each name in several sections.

Our old telephone books make for some interesting reading. The directories provide a direct line to our county's past, and their progressive increase in size is a testament to its growth.

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