Journey with me, reader, to a distant past – the 1980s. Yes, the age before the internet, and indeed before the widespread use of cell phones. We might explain to younger generations that in those inconvenient and primitive times, one had no phone in their pocket to be called upon at the whim of its owner. If a call was to be made, it was on a dial-up phone, and away from home one had the convenience of using a pay phone.

Public phones came into being not long after the invention of the long-distance telephone. Telephones quickly became essential for homes and businesses, and not everyone wanted to pay for the cost of maintaining a phone line in their home. Businesses felt burdened with the general public’s desire to refrain from paying for their own phone line and thus using that of the business. The coin-operated telephone, and later its protective cabinet, were the solution. First seen in 1881 in Berlin, Germany, public pay phones soon spread and quickly became part of the expected landscape of civilization.

The telephone booth became more than just a convenience – a small, enclosed space called to the imaginative and wacky spirit of the 1950s and some may remember the fad of telephone booth stuffing. This cultural phenomenon was popular for a few years in the late 1950s as college students competed to see how many people they could stuff into a phone booth. We may also remember the pivotal role that a phone booth plays in Clark Kent’s transformation into Superman.

The appearance of phone booths changed over the years, following popular branding and aesthetic trends. An example of this in Brevard is the pay phone which once stood on the corner of Broad and Main, outside of what is now O.P. Taylor’s toy store. Through the years, the location was occupied by several stores, including Morris Pharmacy and Hallelujah Health Foods, before becoming the beloved toy store.

Pay phones have now become a nostalgic icon of the past, as defunct technology often does. One lone booth in Brevard remains in front of Rocky’s on Broad Street, but the working telephone is long gone. Where were the phone booths located in Transylvania County? A 1986 Transylvania Times interactive game led to the partial answer to that question.

On August 25, 1986 Transylvania Times reporter Kathy Kyle began a series game with readers to see if they could identify the location of several “mystery phone booths.” What followed was a 28-issue series that encouraged readers to identify the booths, call in, and then confirm their answers in the following issue. Each phone booth was photographed with very little background visible to make the game more challenging.

Looking at the photos, which are in every issue from the initial photo until the December 1, 1986 issue, is an exercise in remembering what used to be where. As often happens with long-time residents, one may find themselves defining a location by where landmarks once stood and the progression of businesses or buildings that were once there.

Dear reader, I had a doozy of a time plotting the locations on the map included and determining as closely as possible what businesses are there now where the phone booths once stood. If you also enjoy the challenge of remembering “what used to be where”, you can access these issues of the Transylvania Times on Digital NC at: https://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/the-transylvania-times-brevard-n-c/, or visit the NC Room on the second floor of the Library to see the collected articles of the mystery phone booth game from 1986.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Sperry. Sources available upon request.