Luralee, Frenchtown's Little Telephone Belle

TELEPHONES PART II – In 1960, the Shurtz mansion was still home of Frenchtown's telephone switchboard operators. It stood on the southeast corner of Harrison and Second streets. That summer, work began on a windowless bunker on the same corner lot.

The work fascinated 6-year-old Luralee Schrier, who lived at 25 Second Street. All summer every day the little girl with blue eyes and taffy-colored hair in the new bouffant style, often accompanied by her doll Vivian, would supervise the work, even bringing her lunch and eating with the construction workers. She spent a good part of every working day watching and asking questions. When her first-grade studies intervened in the fall, she still managed to drop by every day.

Frenchtown's new system would be activated at 2 a.m. on Feb. 17, 1961. Because the new national standard was to use all numerals instead of the alpha-numeric system, as in BEechwood 4-5789, Frenchtown skipped right over that quirky bit of telephone history. Customers were trusted to memorize their new seven-digit phone numbers, all starting with 996.

In advance of the transition, the phone company explained in the News, “Telephone users upon lifting the telephone from its cradle to place a call will be greeted with a steady humming sound, commonly referred to as 'dial tone.' This tone is the machine's way of saying, 'Number please,' and the signal that the equipment is ready for the customer to dial the requested number.”

If only the advances in communication nowadays would be introduced so gently and thoroughly. Instead advances come in thick and fast, and only young people seem to know about them. Please note that I'm playing out this game under protest!

The honor of making the first official call at 2:01 a.m. went to sidewalk superintendent Luralee, who stayed up late and phoned her mom.

The vacant Shurtz mansion towered over the squat phone building for another couple of months before it was demolished, according to Democrat reporter Jane Wyckoff.

For some technical reason, until 1983 someone could call from one Frenchtown number to another by just dialing 6 (or 24) instead of the full exchange of 996-. When you dialed a 9 on a rotary phone, it seemed to take forever for the dial to come all the way back, so this little time-saver was much appreciated.

In 1991 the area code for Frenchtown and for most of Hunterdon was changed from 201 to 908.

The rise of cell-phone usage has phased out most pay phones. Frenchtown's last one was on the western corner of Trenton Avenue and Bridge Street. It was taken away in 2018 right after a heavy-duty wrecker lost its brakes coming down Everittstown Road and destroyed the pizzeria/apartment building right behind it.

From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"