1966 Prospect Road Telephone Directory

Telephone books are kind of obsolete these days, however, they were a very important tool for looking up and talking to people for over one hundred years, if not longer.

One of the newest additions to the Prospect Genealogical Website is a copy of the 1966 Supplementary Telephone Directory for the Prospect Road Exchange - which for those in Halifax is famously 852.

Like the Business Directories of the 19th Century the telephone book is a good genealogical source for locating whether someone was living at a place. The amazing thing about small villages like those along the Prospect Road is that families listed in 1966 still maintain their phone number today or it has been passed down to their descendants who have moved into their homes. I can look through this list and see people within the village of Prospect whose phone numbers I know from memory.

Cover of the 1966 Prospect Road Exchange Supplementary Telephone Directory

One of the fascinating things about this telephone book is on the first page. Not only does it provide some information about the Emergency Numbers and how to go about dialing phone numbers but it has a whole section on How to Call Another Party on Your Line wherein it provides instructions for how to add people to a two, four and ten party-line. A function that we don’t necessarily have today if you have land lines.

As mentioned above, the great thing about telephone books, like that of business directories, is that they provide a secondary source for locating individuals and where they lived when doing genealogical research. For example, this image of the page 4 of the telephone directory which shows all of the people who have telephones on the 852 exchange with the surname COOLEN.

This list of COOLEN’s doesn’t necessary indicate every single person living along the Prospect Road and in its villages with that surname, but it gives you a good point in time reference for some of the families. The reference to Coolen’s Grocery, Prospect is almost certainly the little store that my great-grandparents George and Viola Coolen ran in the village. Below is a picture of them in their store.

George and Viola (Christian) Coolen in their store at PRospect Village, ca. 1969

Have a look through the PDF which is linked above and see if you can locate people that you know or knew living in the area.