https://99percentinvisible.org/article/dialing-around-how-rotary-phones-shaped-the-distribution-of-us-area-codes/

 

"Technical ease informed the distribution of area codes: the lowest numbers were the most desirable to dial on rotary phones, requiring less rotation for each digit. Prominent and highly populated cities like Los Angeles (213), Chicago (312) and Detroit (313) were favored. Populous California got other area codes, too, but the higher-number ones were handed out to cities deemed less important. Note, too, that with the 0 being at the far end of the dial (next to 9), 1 was preferable for the second number in each sequence."

 

So the more pulls, the less important the area was at the time. Now there is one variable in there and that's the middle number. If it is 0 the state had only one area code. If the state had multiple area codes then it was a 1 which results in one more pull.

 

Original Ohio area codes:

 

419: 14 pulls

216: 9 pulls

513: 10 pulls

614: 11 pulls

 

NE Ohio wins.

 

West Virginia area code:

304: 7 pulls.

 

West Virginia was more important than any individual Ohio area code even when handicapping it with an additional pull for being a one code state.

 

North Carolina:

704: 11 pulls.

 

NC was far less important then than it is today.

 

Alabama:

205: 7 pulls.

 

Huh, I guess there was a time when Alabama was actually important wasn't there?

 

Mississippi:

601: 7 pulls

 

DC:

202: 4 pulls

 

NYC:

212: 5 pulls

 

LA:

213: 6 pulls

 

 

 

Now wasn't that fun, guys?

 

But the zero is all the way at the end of the dial, so it takes much longer on a pre-touch tone phone to have to dial a zero than a one.  The x1x codes are thus more desirable than a x0x code when it comes to dialing speed.

Memories of why I hated calling friends in Amherst (988 and 985) Sheffield (949) or Vermilion (967) compared to Lorain (233, 244, 245, 246) or Elyria (322, 323, 324) on a rotary phone lol.

 

Edited April 24, 20214 yr by buckeye1

Oh you're right! Zero's not at the beginning; it's at the end.

 

So the Ohio rankings don't change but the single-code states get drastically worse compared to multi-code states.

 

WV: 17 pulls

NC: 21 pulls

AL: 17 pulls

MS: 17 pulls

DC: 14 pulls

 

That makes more sense. But it doesn't change the single-code states in relation to each other. Poor Hawaii at 28 pulls.