The Mojave Phone Booth

[skinny]

A phone booth in the middle of nowhere. Not a prank either.

1998 TEMPE, Arizona (Wireless Flash)

A pay phone booth miles from civilization is turning into a bizarre tourist attraction.

The phone booth is off Interstate 15 in California's Mojave Desert and is located 15 miles from the nearest town -- literally in the middle of nowhere.

This Thursday night (Aug. 27), the remote phone booth will become a telephonic Mecca thanks to a Tempe, Arizona, man who is so fascinated with the pay phone booth that he's invited people from around the world to meet him in the desert and pay homage to the bizarre booth.

35-year-old computer expert Godfrey Daniels admits he's so intrigued with the remote pay phone that he's dialed the number every day for more than a year just to see who might answer.

So far, Daniels says the phone has only been picked up once -- by a woman who told him the booth has been in the middle
of nowhere since the 1940s.

If you're interested in calling the boonies in the remote chance that someone will answer, here's the number: 760-733-9969.

To get to phone, take I-15 and get off at Cima Exit and follow telephone poles down dirt road.

Source:
http://fusionanomaly.net/tempearizona.html

 

[Yithian]

It's conceivable that the location used to be somewhere as opposed to nowhere. Even something as simple as a regular rest stop for bus drivers or a handover point for deliveries could justify its initial placement.

The fact that it has remained on the site is no mystery: it's more trouble to shut it down and remove it than leave it there and largely forget it.

Tel: 760-733-9969

Could an American poster phone and confirm that it's still operational?

 

[KHammers]

I would but I'm scared of someone answering. Or worse, getting a call back. Especially if its non-operational.

 

[skinny]

I've called. It is still operating. There was a Mexican voice at the other end. Verbatim:
Eebah eebah andalay!!

 

[KHammers]

I've called. It is still operating. There was a Mexican voice at the other end. Verbatim:
Eebah eebah andalay!!

LOL that's messed up. I thought the PC crowd retired Speedy Gonzalez.

 

[skinny]

NOOOOOOO!!!

sorry 'bout that

 

[KHammers]

It's ok. I'm sad my daughter won't learn about opera how I did, from a cross-dressing rabbit. Or about nitroglycerin, from a stuttering cat chasing a mouse. Instead she gets Teletubbies...

 

[skinny]

True.
Sylvester had a lisp. Did Tom have a stutter? I can't remember.

 

[KHammers]

My bad. I meant a lisping cat. Tom didn't talk.

 

[Coal]

My bad. I meant a lisping cat. Tom didn't talk.

He screamed "Ow-Ow-Ow" quite a lot.

 

[Shady]

Not merican but i would like to phone it if someone has the area code and whatnot

 

[Yithian]

Great photographs of the nearest 'development':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cima,_California - population: 21.

This suggests that the 760 is the area code, so 001-760-733-9969 might work.

It says that the community originally grew up as a place through which the Union Pacific Railroad passed - could there be a clue to the existence of the phone box ('booth')?

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_phone_booth#Removal - sadly removed in 2000 - dreams dashed.

The phone booth was originally set up in 1948 to provide telephone service to local volcanic cinder miners and others living in the area, at the request of Emerson Ray, who owned the Cima Cinder Mine nearby.[2] It was part of a network of "policy stations" placed by mandate of the California government to serve residents of isolated parts of the state.

 

[Shady]

Thank you, i just called it, i got screeches and quick morse code type of noises,then it went silent, then a voice repeated press one to nine for conference call, so i pressed three and got music played at me

I said hello, but the music continued

 

[Shady]

I would add that i would have held on a little longer but i didnt know how much i had left on my phone, it would have been interesting to see who i would have been conferencing with. I think they must have reassigned that number

 

[Yithian]

Please record and upload.

 

[Shady]

Techno thicky here and i wont install crap on my phone

I just rung again and still screechy, beep, dial tone then screech, 'This number has been changed to conference, press one thro nine for conference' and i missed it before, she did say 'You are the only party in this conference'

No morse code noise, misinterpreted, sorry

 

[Krepostnoi]

Thank you, i just called it, i got screeches and quick morse code type of noises,then it went silent, then a voice repeated press one to nine for conference call, so i pressed three and got music played at me

I said hello, but the music continued

Yes, I had a similar experience, although I demurred at pressing any of the digits one through nine. Can any of our US members enlighten us as to whether there is such a thing as a premium-rate number over there? It occurs to me it could be a good scam to get a profitable phone number to go viral

 

[Ulalume]

Yes, I had a similar experience, although I demurred at pressing any of the digits one through nine. Can any of our US members enlighten us as to whether there is such a thing as a premium-rate number over there? It occurs to me it could be a good scam to get a profitable phone number to go viral

Never heard of a premium-rate number. I have heard of that phone booth, though. I'd assumed (rightly or wrongly) that it was some kind of art project, like that Prada store out in West Texas. Can't remember where I got that idea though. Hmm.

The painted on eyebrows that most young women sport these days... I literally think "WTF" each time, especially when faced (see what I did there!) with a bunch of them in a seminar.

Sometimes a girl has to express her inner chola.

 

[Yithian]

Caller claims fifteen miles from the nearest paved road, the Wiki article above says twelve.

A vintage-era website on an expedition there is still up and running:
http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/mojave.htm

 

[Yithian]

First article about the booth from Feburary 23, 1996 in the Orange County Register

FILE ATTACHED AS .PDF

And the 1998 New York Times article than drove a lot of the interest in the site:

If a Pay Phone Rings, Who Will Answer?​

By PAMELA LICALZI O'CONNELL​

Published: Thursday, May 14, 1998​

SOMEWHERE there's a pay phone ringing, thanks to Mark Thomas.

It could be the one next to the Eiffel Tower. Or the one in baggage claim area G at the Honolulu airport. Or the one outside the IGA supermarket in Rathdrum, Idaho. The numbers for these and thousands of other pay phones around the world can be found on Mr. Thomas's Web page, (www.sorabji.com/livewire/ payphones) the Payphone Project.

Most sites that list pay phone numbers are frequented by hackers. But Mr. Thomas, and a few adventurous others, are not interested in getting coins back. They want answers.

For them, pay phones are about connecting, telling stories, expecting the unexpected. They exalt the mysterious imperative of a pay phone ringing on a city street or on a lonely desert highway and eagerly anticipate the intersection of lives when someone feels compelled to pick up that receiver. In Mr. Thomas's words, his site is about ''random contact and the surreal madness it can provoke.''
Of course, many people use Mr. Thomas's list and other lists like it (such as the Pay Phone Directory, payphone.ossuary.ml.org, which focuses on the United States and Canada) to pull pranks. A man who won't give his full name periodically calls the phone outside Graceland and does his best Elvis imitation.

David Letterman is widely considered to have popularized this school of dialing. While Mr. Thomas lists the comedian as an inspiration, the Payphone Project doesn't take a sardonic approach to pay phone calling. The site's esthetic, if you will, is perhaps best exemplified by Godfrey Daniels, whose interest in one remotely located pay phone evolved into a personal pilgrimage.

Mr. Daniels's home page tells how he got the number for a phone booth in the middle of the Mojave Desert and what happened the day someone answered (www.cardhouse.com/g/ moj/mojave.htm). Mr. Daniels eventually visited the booth. ''It was just as I had imagined it,'' he said later, ''a lonely communications outpost at the end of a long, long chain of telephone poles. All its glass had been shot out, but I thought it was beautiful.''

His journey complete, Mr. Daniels inscribed his Web address on the phone and photographed the booth.

Mr. Thomas said visitors to his site had submitted more than a thousand pay phone numbers that he had yet to add to the database. The most common area codes for submissions are 212 (Manhattan) and 718 (the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island), as well as 416 (Ontario), 801 (Utah) and 317 (Indiana) -- places where Mr. Thomas says he has cadres of contributors.

But his site is more than a list of numbers; a message board and a photo gallery contain comments and anecdotes about visitors' pay phone adventures.

''The point of my site is simply to get people talking to each other,'' Mr. Thomas said. ''I think of pay phones as points of contact -- narrowcast devices.

''I hope my site can encourage more stories like Godfrey's to happen. To most people, pay phones exist to have calls placed from them, not the other way around. Next time you hear a ringing pay phone, I want you to wonder, 'Is it for me?'

Archived Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/2009111...ogy/if-a-pay-phone-rings-who-will-answer.html

 

[Yithian]

Caller claims fifteen miles from the nearest paved road, the Wiki article above says twelve.

A vintage-era website on an expedition there is still up and running:
http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/mojave.htm

'Desert Chad' himself, from his archived website:

Much More:
https://web.archive.org/web/20001011020636/http://www.athensmedia.net/desertchad/

 

[Mythopoeika]

Chad seems like such a chilled dude.

Wonder what he did/does for a living that allows him so much free time to do the desert excursions?

He lives in Slab City, so I guess his expenses are minimal.

 

[Endlessly Amazed]

For the benefit of our non-US Fortean Brethren: In the US, if a phone number is not used and is disconnected, after a time (this used to be ten years but I don't know what it is currently), the phone number is assigned to a different customer. So, even if this Mojave phone number rings now, it may not be in the phone booth in the desert.

In the US, phone numbers can be assigned or reassigned to any geographic location in the area code, if it is a "landline." Or, to any customer who wants a cellphone initiated in that geographic area. After the cellphone is set up, the customer can use it anywhere service is available. A landline number is not permanently attached to a building or street address.

The US has multiple service providers, both for landlines and cell phones. I do not know how the potential numbers are divided up or how they are kept track of. For the traditional landlines, there are only a limited set of possible numbers in any area code: 10 to the 7th for the US local number designation of xxx-xxxx. Once that maximum number looms close in actual assignments, a new area code is initiated and the landline numbers are divided into the new geographic areas.

When I first lived in Arizona 40 years ago, the entire state had a single area code. Now it has multiples because the population has increased, and the number of phones per person, street address, or business entity has increased.

 

[Kondoru]

Most payphones here are disconnected.

But I found a live un.

One of those modern, open boxes.

it had ivy growing up it, and a faded sign mentioning disconnection.

But the display is still lit.

I didnt try it.

 

[ramonmercado]

Most payphones here are disconnected.

But I found a live un.

One of those modern, open boxes.

it had ivy growing up it, and a faded sign mentioning disconnection.

But the display is still lit.

I didnt try it.

Where is it located?

 

[Dinobot]

Most payphones here are disconnected.

But I found a live un.

One of those modern, open boxes.

it had ivy growing up it, and a faded sign mentioning disconnection.

But the display is still lit.

I didnt try it.

Dare you to call it...

It might not summon Cthulhu....

 

[Kondoru]

Church Hanborough.

Its on the OS map, on the junction opposite the church

 

[Mythopoeika]

Church Hanborough.

Its on the OS map, on the junction opposite the church

Opposite the former Post Office...
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.812...4!1s6AjuIyD9FddMiTD2i2n-pg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

[Kondoru]

Thats it. But more overgrown

How do I post pics?

 

[brownmane]

First article about the booth from Feburary 23, 1996 in the Orange County Register
Mr. Thomas said visitors to his site had submitted more than a thousand pay phone numbers that he had yet to add to the database. The most common area codes for submissions are 212 (Manhattan) and 718 (the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island), as well as 416 (Ontario), 801 (Utah) and 317 (Indiana) -- places where Mr. Thomas says he has cadres of contributors.

The 416 area code is Toronto ON. Though I doubt any of the numbers would be working. As @Endlessly Amazed mentioned, numbers are reused, especially with the advent of cell phones.

Almost all pay phones have been removed due to ubiquity of cell phones. They make no profit for the phone companies. You're lucky if you can find one. Too bad for those who are on limited incomes and can't afford cell phone rates.