When I was a kid we lived in Mill Valley...DU8-xxxx was our phone number, Dunlap. I remember my grandmother giving out her phone number as DU8, rather than 388. We moved to Novato in 1969. For a few years if we were calling another number in Novato, we didnt have to dial the first two numbers, just the last five...for example, 897-xxxx was dialed 7-xxxx. And at that time you could tell by the phone number prefix, 892 or 897, if it was a new number (someone who recently got a phone number) it was 897, if they had lived in Novato a while their number prefix was 892. Nowadays you can't tell...the numbers are all mixed up.
I can still remember our phone number WAbash 4-0234. Later became 924-0234. (no longer our number) It was a party line in Larkspur. So glad to finally get our own line as we had 4 kids in the family. We probably drove the other party line people nuts!!
New Verizon phonebooks are now including Marin County in the listings. It wasn't until the mid 1980's that Novato was included in the Marin County phone book. Up until last year Novato still had their own seperate phonebook titled Novato / Southern Sonoma County. I just received a new phone book in Mill Valley from Verizon now called , Marin County / Southern Sonoma County. Probably the change is due to Verizon soliciting advertizers for their yellow pages in Marin now , but it also might have to do with the gerrymandering and creation of new transportation districts to serve the Sonoma developers with Marin tax dollars for their pet projects.
Hi Jason , yes what we all call cell phones are radio phones as opposed to land lines. Full duplex with seperate transmit and recieve radio frequencys. In the old days only rock stars and important business and government people had radio phones , pre 1977. The system was first MTS and then IMTS. They were about 30 watt mobile radio phones that operated at around 140 Mhz VHF -FM. There were only 5 channels in the bay area with the call center in Oakland , so sometimes people would get a busy signal. Now all the handheld radiophones we all use run on several bands of radio frequencys Nextel's IDEN network is 900Mhz , AT&T;s TDMA and the RMTS ( Rural Mobile Telephone Service ) is 800 Mhz. Verizons CDMA network runs at 1200 Mhz and now 1900 Mhz. Now the latest thing is G3 ( generation 3 ) . That is why most new phones are quad band. Yes they are all still radio phones , putting out about 3/10ths of a watt for GSM and 6/ 10ths of a watt for IDEN and TDMA , but amplifiers are available to boost up to 3 watts if required. I only use a radiophone for voice , not listening to MP3 low quality music , low res cameras, and I only use a computer in the office or at home , so for the best voice quality from my expierence is the higher powered , lower radio frequency networks , IDEN and TDMA. Those high frequencys kind of scare me. I also use a speakerphone and have a real old car kit for my vehicles. I never put a radio to my head , it cooks your brain and looks stupid.
I'll ask Laurie, the head librarian in the California Room at the Civic Center if she has any interesting info about all the old names for the phone codes.
By the way, for those of you who don't know what to do with your ORIGINAL photos (after you upload a scan to this website of course), the California Room is a GREAT place to donate them to. They'll keep them in environmentally secure cases so they will last for eternity.
A friend of mine who grew up in Mill Valley , ( Richard A. ) told me he has a collection of old phone books from Marin. When he told me this he said I might think it strange. I told him that I think it's totally cool . What better documentation of the people , addresses and the business listed could anyone have. Jason , you may know Richard , the last time I saw him he told me he still has a desk at the Greenbrea FHA office , although he hasn't been doing much lately , he was a former top producer and worked long and hard for FHA.
Here's another person who remembers our pre-dial phone number: Larkspur 643. Actually, the official phone company designation for the exchange was apparently "Corte Madera," which always incensed my mother, seeing as how the exchange building itself was in downtown Larkspur, at 464 Magnolia.
Later, when the "WAbash" prefix was instituted, my brother was incensed (it's a family trait) that they hadn't come up with something with at least a modicum of local significance. "It's in Indiana, for heaven's sake," he complained.
And you can now keep a number forever , wherever you live , just get it assigned to a radio phone and take it with you. Even if you move across the country , you could then assign it to your land line , but the disadvantage of that is you would have to pay toll charges from your Marin number to all local calls , only a successful buiness would want to do that to keep old customers , better off assigning it to a cell phone that has free long distance and no roaming charges. I have been told that after about a year the cell phone carrier will ask you to change area codes , but I know someone who has been doing it for 5 years with no problem.
My brother kept the WAbash 4 number since he took over the family home in Corte Madera after our father died two years ago, even though he has his own intricate system of other numbers and tele/cyber/etc communication. As mentioned in different ways above, the old # is like some sort of connection to the past, almost literally, as if some old long-gone neighbor might call someday. I think the black rotary phone is still there also (the "newer", light plastic, not the old, solid, heavy kind.) I remember party lines, but I wasn't old enough to be interested in eavesdropping, unfortunately.
I was looking on this site at the Novato section , looking at properties for sale , in one ad it had a phone number which was listed Novato 582R. So maybe Novato never has an exchange name. I think it was about the mid sixty's that the names were abandoned. Novato was 892 , 897 , and later 898. Now there are so many new prefixes and new cell phone prefixes I gave up on keeping track of them. One thing some people don't know is that the " Number Portability Act " if you have a classic old prefix , you can transfer that number to a cell phone. I have 2 388 numbers and one I transfered to my cell phone for my office number. I have been offered big money for 1 of my DUnlap 8 numbers , but I will not sell. Having a classic old Mill Valley number is a sign that the business has survived for many years.
I think the Terra Linda prefix 479 is newer and never had a name, it used to be a part of the GLenwood exchange , same with 883, newer and never had a name. As for Novato , I honestly don't remember since it was never listed in the Marin directory , but maybe an employee of the old GTE ( now Verizon ) can complete the list for us.
That sums it up for all of old incorporated Marin. West Marin communitys never had prefixes, when you lived in Bolinas you just dialed 4 digits to ring someone else in town, and if you wanted to call to another community you had to call the operator and ask for a number. Novato was never really considered part of Marin. It wasn't until the mid 80's that they started listing Novato numbers in the Marin directory, but they still have their own seperate phone book , always had a seperate phone company, cable TV , Fire District and Water District - that is fed more than half their water from Sonoma County Water Agency.
Tiburon / Belvedere was GEneva, that was before Belvedere got the 789 prefix. Back in the early 60's I lived in Stinson Beach and we had no prefix, I still remember our phone number, it was (Stinson Beach) 2682 , and we were always getting calls for the Balzan Dairy which was Bolinas 2682.
As a Corte Madera person, I well remember the exchange abbreviation WAbash. You used to actually SAY Wabash when you told someone your phone #. Wabash4 0329. A few years ago, I had the unpleasant task of cleaning out my mom's house aftershe died. Part of that chore was cancelling phone co. account. The phone number that had been attached to that house all my life was no more. I understand they need to recycle the numbers and assign it to some other account, but last time I checked, it hadn't been used. I like it that way. When I was really little, an option was offered by the phone co., to share the phone line with several other households. Called it a "party line", it was cheaper per month than a regular private line. You had a special ring pattern that would tell you that the call was for you. Two long rings, one short ring, for example. Even if the call wasn't for you, the line was live. You could pick up and eavesdrop on your neighbors!
i think GLenwood covered most of the county. it was used out here in the san geronimo valley as well. when they needed more numbers in the central area of the county, the valley got its prefix changed to 488-
I remember as a tiny tot in the 50's learning our phone number as WA4-3984, and knowing that WA stood for Wabash. I also remember my brother's ham radio call sign, WN6 MOJ, from about that long ago. Nowadays I can hardly remember my ATM code. Where did those brain cells go?
What were some of the early phone codes like YU3-5555? What did they stand for? Geograhical places in Marin or streets? What year did they phase the number starting with letters out? Can anyone recall any Marin ones?
