You're reading a post titled “Twilight of the area code master” from the archives of Big Contrarian. It was originally published on April 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 PM. If you enjoy it, you should subscribe to this site’s RSS feed, or its Twitter page.

Twilight of the area code master:

So way back in my teens, I could tell you where an area code was. All of them. Tell me 404 and I’ll say Georgia, say 914 and that’s New York, 312 is Chicago, 206 is Washington. I’d see a phone number and I’d know where it was. If it was in my home area code, I’d see the first six numbers and know what town it was in.

In 1995, 334 broke it for good. An area code for Alabama, the magic formula was gone. It scanned as an exchange for me, as it did for a lot of switching equipment. It might be hard to imagine now for the younger set, but there was a time when this actually cut off parts of the country

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