Post #608848 by woofmutt on Mon, Oct 3, 2011 8:50 AM

Wasn't the word prefix (such as Bigelow, Lonesome, etc) on a phone number actually called an exchange? Area codes designate a larger geographic area.

I remember as a kid in the early 70s that some older people still used a word to designate an exchange number and some phones still had them on the dial but no contemporary print material used word exchanges. Because of that I usually figure old printed material I find with a word exchange on it to be no later than 1970.