It wasn't until 1950, when our family moved to 10007 Port Sheldon St, that we finally had both! Such affluence!
For the uninitiated, you see the reciever which when lifted connected the phone to the phone line. The receiver was held to the ear and you spoke into the microphone in the center. The two bells above the microphone would ring when you had a call
Our phone number was 4F23, which meant we were on line 4 and our signal was 2 long rings and 3 short rings. So, if I cranked the handle one time, the operator would plug her headphones into the #4 plugin, and ask who you wanted to call. If you wanted to call someone who happened to be on line 10, she would connect you to line 10 and ring the appropriate number of rings to connect you.
It appears to us today as a crude device and it was. I'm not sure if there was any kind of lightening arrester, but I remember two times during thunderstorms that lightening followed the wire to our phone and knocked the plaster off the wall around the phone. It was possible to call to Zeeland, Holland, or other towns, but it was a circuitous route and I believe there was also a toll involved.
In 1956, the Borculo Telephone Co. modernized. See borculo.weebly.com/blog/borculo-telephone-company-compiled-by-don-vandenbosch-with-contributions-from-peter-van-den-berge-and-robert-essenburg for more information about the modernizing.
With the modernization came a new phone.
Each area now had a 5 digit number preceded by a 2 letter prefix For example, Janet's number in Zeeland was PR2-4558. The two letters identified the area. Holland numbers began with EX and I think Borculo numbers began with TR. Later the letter prefix was changed to numbers, so PR became 77 and Janet's number became 772-4558. Still later came the area codes like 616.
With the change of phones, the Borculo Telephone Co. now had a large supply of the old phones which they were eager to get rid of and would sell for $5 each. I bought 5 of them thinking someday I would make some money by selling them at a higher price. Soon I was drafted into the Army and was stationed in Germany. One day I got a letter from my mother who was very pleased with herself for selling those phones for $5 each. She didn't want to store them at their house anymore. That was a disappointment, but I understood her not wanting to store them anymore.
Obviously, phones have made huge advances in technology, but the numbering system has stayed the same to today.