What is the first phone number?

Answer 1

Bologna History:

The Lighter Side of History

(Which means some "historical facts" and a whole lot of bologna)

The first telephone number was a wrong number given to a man by the name of Percy Lonelyguy who was given the number by Sally Tusexiphoru who made up the phone number to get poor Percy off her back. He kept bothering her for her phone number so he could call her and ask her out on a date in spite of the fact that Sally kept telling him she was busy most days washing her hair. This was in 1883 only a few years after the usage of telephone numbers had been implemented. Before the use of actual telephone numbers there was a central switchboard operator who would patch one telephone call through to another telephone and did so by the caller requesting the name of the person he or she was calling and the switch board operator would patch the call through. Sally Tusexiphoru received many calls and often kept the switchboard operators busy patching unwanted calls through to the beleaguered Sally who just wanted some peace and quiet. It was Switchboard Susan who first realized that Sally didn't want all these calls and Susan made a deal with Sally that involved the creation of telephone numbers. Susan assigned a real telephone number to Sally in case she wanted a call and advised her to just make up numbers starting after the last issuance of phone numbers to give to all those clueless men who kept chasing her....

Editor's note:

O.k. that's enough Mr. we don't even have to call the Society of Uptight and Really, Really, Serious Historians to know this answer is a bunch of hogwash. Will you please answer the question truthfully?

O.k, but just for your information I used to know a girl who went by the name of Swtichboard Susan.

Nobody cares about your personal life and they just want a direct answer to the question.

O.k. fine then. The first telephone number was issued either in late 1979 or early 1880 in Lowell Massachusetts. It was during an extremely worrisome epidemic of measles that the enterprising Dr. Moses Greely Parker, concerned that the epidemic might overload the four switchboard operators or that one or more of the operators would succumb to sickness themselves and leave the town telephonically helpless. Dr. Parker recommended that telephone numbers be used in place of names to help any substitute or new operator adapt to the system quicker. Parker, being as fascinated with telephones as he was curing disease and healing the sick decided to invest in this new technology and by 1883 became the single largest stockholder in both the American Telephone Company and the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Editors note:

S.U.R.R.S.H. has verified the veracity of this last paragraph and has stated that given the contributor who is answering this question it is remarkably accurate.

Oh really? This just goes to show how subjective history really is because the answer I gave was found on wikipedia and that article is under contention claiming there are no references to cite their claims and that it does not represent a world view. There is also the question of business phones that were all ready in wide use before the advent of personal telephones and to some degree phone numbers were all ready in use even if it was internally. So there.

Editors note:

Oh yeah? Well...uh...well, telephonically is not a real word.

Is too.

Is not.

Well, it could be.

Could not.

Could to.

That's enough Mr. if you want to take this up with arbitration then do so. We are very busy here and have no more time for you nonsense.

O.k. fine. I don't time for my nonsense either. I'm out of here!