San Francisco was the first major telephone exchange, but New Haven, Connecticut (population: 150,000) was where the early experiments with telephone service started. Alexander Graham Bell set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven: 21 telephones on 8 lines, meaning that individuals sometimes had to wait until the phone was freed up to place their call. Those difficulties did not sway early investors, led by George Williard Coy to create the nation’s first telephone directory.

On this day, February 21, in in 1878, the New Haven-based District Telephone Co. issued their “list of subscribers.” Far from the books of recent times, it was just a single sheet of paper, about 5.5  x 8 inches in size, containing fifty entries.

Coy’s District Telephone Company was later expanded into the Southern New England Telephone Company. It continued operating more or less independently until 1998, when it was bought out by SBC Communication, which in turn later merged with AT&T.