.Seven digit dialing is alive and well in the suburbs of Chicago

Perhaps this would interest few people beside me, but you can still make a local call here by dialing seven digits.

No, that's not a current picture of my local telephone company's central exchange office.

I thought those days had passed.

Now that's got me wondering just what kind of central office switch actually serves my area (yes, I'm a technology geek, and I'm in the industry). An old ESS1 maybe? Are any of those still around these days? Maybe I could make a few calls and attempt to find out what kind of switch it is.

Yeah, right, like I have that kind of time.

My effort would probably be better spent getting a vintage wall phone installed in my telephone niche, which is currently bare, an eyesore, and a spot that attracts clutter like a dog attracts fleas.

I love that niche. That type of period detail is the main reason I wanted to buy this bungalow in the first place. When we moved in, there was a cheap plastic trimline set in the niche, along with an unsightly biscuit jack screwed into the baseboard below (the phone cable was exposed and followed the same path as the yellow string does in the picture above). I removed the phone and the jack, intending to conceal the phone wire inside the wall and remount a vintage phone. However, this is yet another project I've started, and have not finished.

I do have a vintage phone to put there. As you can see, it was $4 at my local thrift store.

It's not a bad little Automatic Electric model AE90A vintage wall phone, from the late 1940's or early 1950's. Of course, an Automatic Electric model AE50 tombstone phone, now that would really hit the spot...