Telephone directories provide useful snapshots of communities at a given point in time. They have limitations, however, because not every resident or business had a telephone. Researchers should use the information in these spreadsheets in combination with other sources of information.

This workbook contains information about individuals and businesses which had telephones in the years given for each spreadsheet listed at the bottom of the page. The information from 1913 was compiled from issues of the South Florida Banner and the information for 1922 from the September 7, 1922 issue of the Homestead Enterprise. The listings for 1919, 1926, 1931, 1933 and 1943 come from directories published by the telephone companies. These directories may have been photocopied by Dr. William M. Straight in the mid-1990s from copies held by the Historical Association of South Florida (now HistoryMiami) for Larry Wiggins, who was active in the Florida Pioneer Museum at that time. The photocopies are not of the best quality and in some cases, the telephone numbers are illegible. Perhaps the original directories will be located at some time in the future so the missing information can be filled in. The 1934 – 1940 directories are from the Library of Congress.

1913-1943 Telephone Directories

NOTE: Jeff Blakley has corrected the spellings of names in the spreadsheets. The information in this workbook is not an exact copy of the original document.

From the front page of the 1926 directory, issued by the Homestead Telephone Co., shortly before its sale to Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co.:

All special lines are numbered from 1 to 499.

Party lines in town from 500 to 999 do not carry over 4 telephones and the suffixes thereon are:

J for 2 short rings
W for 3 short rings
R for 4 short rings
M for 1 long and 1 short ring

Rural lines will number from 1000 up. The first two figures of such numbers indicates the line number and the last two the ring. A short ring being represented by a unit and a long ring by 10. For example, 2003 means rural line No. 20 and 3 short rings thereon. 2012 means one long ring and 2 short rings on same line. The full code being:

02 – two short rings
03 – three short rings
04 – four short rings
05 – five short rings
11 – one long and one short ring
12 – one long and two short rings
13 – one long and three short rings
14 – one long and four short rings
21 – two long and one short ring
22 – two long and two short rings
23 – two long and three short rings
24 – two long and four short rings
25 – two long and five short rings
26 – two long and six short rings
27 – two long ans seven short rings
28 – two long and eight short rings
29 – two long and nine short rings
30 – three long rings
31 – three long and one short rings
32 – three long and two short rings