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This 1882 L.A. phonebook contains simply 90 names.
(William Liang / For The Occasions)
On April 3, 1882, town permitted the Los Angeles Phone Co. to string strains inside metropolis limits. Per 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 Phone Ebook (1882),” priced round $13,000.
The one, folded sheet lists simply 90 names, largely companies close to historic downtown equivalent 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 file of town’s earliest telecommunications as a social snapshot of fin de siècle Los Angeles.
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