Phone Exchanges

The Dixie State Bank in Walton was HUdson 5-4121; the New Haven School near Union was DUpont 4-3236. The words “Hudson” and “Dupont” were the names of the exchange you were in. To go from your exchange to another exchange, you dialed the first two letters of the exchange, plus the five digit number. Inside the exchange, you could just dial the five digit number. It explains why today, phones in a given area - older ones, anyway, generally all start with the same two numbers – it’s the vestige of the old exchange names.

In Union, it was DUPONT;
in Walton and Verona, HUDSON;
in Florence, it was ATLANTIC;
in Hebron, DUPONT;
and in Burlington, JUSTICE.