This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Editor's note • Robert Kirby is off this week. This is a reprint of an earlier column.

In 1885, if you lived in Salt Lake City and wanted "fresh" California vegetables, it was easy. You picked up the phone and called grocer C.B. Durst at phone number 129.

This assumed a lot. First, that you had a phone. Second, that Mr. Durst would answer his. Finally, that the vegetables weren't in fact baking in a stranded boxcar somewhere in Nevada.

You also had to remember the &#$@! number. One-twenty-nine? How could anyone possibly keep a number that complicated in their head? There were lots of those in 1885 Salt Lake. The phone list (no book yet) went all the way into the 200s.

By 1902, the list had reached well beyond that. The phone number for the city editor at the Deseret Evening News was 359, but you had to let it ring twice. The corresponding Salt Lake Tribune number was 666.

In 1916, things were worse. To call Bettilyon Home Builders on Main Street, you first dialed 5703 — followed by a "W." Some fool, it seems, had added letters to the dial.

The 1932 phone number for Southeast Furniture Company in Sugar House was HY 1915, also known as "Hyland 1915." People figured out that a longer number was easier to remember if you mentally connected it to a word.

Incidentally, I'm old enough to remember word prefixes. My friends and I got no end of laughs out of the fact that ours was 288, or BUT. "Gimme a call at Butt 5000," we'd say to girls.

In 1944, Salt Lake Tribune classifieds carried this ad: "Amer-Japanese Chef or Fry Cook. Call 4-0260." Finding a Japanese person wasn't tough in 1944. Getting one to cook for you was probably a lot harder.

Eventually, telephone numbers took the sequence we are most familiar with today. I still remember my friend Duncan's: "255-2220, hang up if his mom answers."

Sometime around 1960, the phone company announced the magic of Direct Distance Dialing, or DDD. We know it today as area codes.

After June 4, 1961, residents in the metropolitan areas of Salt Lake City would no longer have to dial "0" for the operator and ask her (it was always a "her") to connect them to grandpa at BORING 4334, in Bug Crotch, Kan.

The operator still got involved in DDD. After dialing "1" followed by the new three-digit area code, then the number for Gramps, the operator would come on the line and ask for YOUR telephone number.

That still wasn't so bad. More troubling was the fact that live operators made long-distance prank calling much riskier. When my little brother tried calling Fidel Castro, the FBI got involved. I am not making this up.

Technology hasn't made things any easier. Oh, sure, you can text Fidel a nude picture of yourself, but the numbers keep getting longer. So does the word-association idiocy. Need a lawyer? Call 1-800-GET REVENGE.

Today we're faced with 10 digits just to ring across the street. A hundred years from now, calling your mom on Mars will take all day — before her phone actually starts to ring.