BLAST FROM THE PAST: Pay Phones

 

When was the last time you  saw a public pay phone? In the old days (pre-1990), they were everywhere. Whenever I walked by one, I would always check the coin slot for change that someone left behind. The most I ever found was a couple of dollars. What a thrill! Nowadays pay phones are a relic of the past. But their demise started long before the adoption of cell phones.

The idea of a public pay phone is a classic example of necessity being the mother of invention. The pay phone was the creation of William Gray in 1888. Gray was a tinkerer and one day, his wife had a medical emergency. He went around knocking people's door asking to use their phone but everyone said "nope, get lost you loser".  Gray eventually got his wife to the doctor. The ordeal of trying to find a phone inspired him to create a public pay phone. His prototype was patented and he proceed to establish the Gray Telephone Company.  They began to install pay phones across the USA. He continued to improve upon his invention by racking up to 20 patents. In 1911, a new pay phone model was made in a manufacturing partnership with Western Electric (which was the manufacturing arm of AT&T). 

Photo: The Telephone Museum

 

Eventually, Gray's patents expired and his company was bought out by Automatic Electric - which was later acquired by General Telephone & Electronics. After numerous reorgs over the years the company's assets went under Lucent which became part of Nokia.

Public pay phones peaked around 1995 with 2.6 million of them in the USA. So what caused their demise? The obvious answer would be cell phones. But that's not entirely correct. The downfall of pay phones started long before cell phones became the norm.  Their decline began with people using them to conduct illegal activities which brought crime to neighborhoods. Many cities passed legislation to restrict pay phone access or eliminate them entirely from public places. An article in The Atlantic stated:

"Pay-phone companies acknowledged their product was a common tool for drug dealers, gamblers, pimps, and scammers."

Pay phone were being eliminated for this reason. Another factor in their demise was the break up of the AT&T monopoly in 1984 which led to the deregulation of pay phones. These are the little known reasons why they were put out to pasture. Then the final nail in the coffin was the affordability and access of cell phones in the early 2000s. 

Today, it's estimated there are 100,000 public pay phones left in the USA. The top 5 states with pay phones are:

• Hawaii
• New York (NYC no longer has pay phones)
• California
• Texas 
• Pennsylvania
  

If you're lucky to see one, pay your respects as it may be the last time you'll catch a glimpse of this soon to be extinct part of our culture.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine; The Atlantic; How Stuff Works