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This 1882 L.A. phonebook consists of simply 90 names.
(William Liang / For The Occasions)
On April 3, 1882, the town permitted the Los Angeles Phone Co. to string strains inside metropolis limits. Every week later, L.A. printed its first cellphone e book. Most early directories had been tossed as soon as a brand new one arrived, however Peter Harrington Uncommon Books has a uncommon surviving copy, titled “Los Angeles Telephone Book (1882),” priced round $13,000.
The only, folded sheet lists simply 90 names, principally companies close to historic downtown similar to liveries, saloons, physicians, mills, druggists and the native undertaker. Included are directions for calling the central workplace, together with one- and two-digit numbers for USC’s first president, M.M. Bovard (dial “58”), and the Los Angeles Membership (dial “38”). Seen at public sale solely twice in fashionable data, the listing is a uncommon piece of early Californiana — as a lot a document of the town’s earliest telecommunications as a social snapshot of fin de siècle Los Angeles.
