This audio file is an excerpt from "The Hitchhiker", which was the September 2, 1942, episode of the radio show "Suspense". The voice is that of Orson Welles.

This scene depicts what it was like to place a "long distance" phone call from a phone booth in the 1940s or even the 1950s.

Back then, cell phones were 40 years in the future. If you were traveling and wanted to make a call, you had to find a phone booth or convince someone (e.g. a hotel manager) to let you use their personal or business phone.

It cost money to call long distance, which usually meant anywhere outside whatever town you were in. If the call were made from a personal or business phone, the charges would be billed later to the owner of the phone, so it was unlikely that anyone would let you use their phone except for a local call.

A call made from a phone booth had to be paid with coins inserted into slots. From a phone booth, even local calls cost money, initially five cents for the first few minutes, later ten cents, and then twenty-five cents.

In the 1940s, when this radio show was recorded, the phone in a phone booth had a different slot for each type of coin - nickels, dimes, and quarters. Each coin inserted rang a bell inside the phone, with a different tone for each type of coin. The operator could tell from the sounds how many coins had been inserted, and which denominations. The operator would tell you how much to deposit for the first few minutes, and wouldn't put the call through until you had paid the amount. If you didn't have the change you needed, too bad.

Once the coins had been deposited, the operator would initiate a chain of connections from one major city to the next. Each operator would plug wires into jacks and communicate by voice with the next operator.

Now let's listen to the process of placing a long distance phone call in 1942: