The story below the orange squiggle was posted to Telecom Digest in 2003. Telecom Digest is an Internet mailing list that has been around since 1981, even before it was called the Internet. (It was the ARPANET, a DoD network used by government employees, contractor-corporation employees, and research universities. No spam, no commercial usage at all allowed.) The editor at the time was Patrick Townson, who lived for many years in Chicago and knew much of the city's lore, as well as a ton of telephone industry lore. He wrote this little tale, not I. The Digest still exists, both as a mailing list and (usually) as a moderated Usenet group, though hardly anybody even remembers what Usenet is (or, almost, was). But it's nowhere near as big as it once was.
The question arose, why were Chicago's City Hall and police telephone numbers 312-744? How did phone numbers get assigned anyhow? It's different today, with multiple competing phone companies, wired and wireless, all pulling number blocks from a common pool, but in the old days, it was just Ma Bell and her employees.
Centrex was a phone system, new in the 1960s, that introduced the Direct Inward Dialing (DID) feature. Before Centrex, companies had switchboards with one number, and you always had to ask the operator for an extension. DID means you can dial an extension directly. You don't need Centrex to do that any more, but that's the context of this story. When a Centrex was created, new phone numbers had to be created to accommodate the extensions. And Chicago City Hall's new Centrex was given 312-744.
Subject: How Did Chicago City Hall Get 312-744 Anyway?
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TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, it was like this. ...
Anyway, King Daley the First got tired of the ineffeciency [of their cord switchboard] and ordered a centrex installed. Bell spent several months working on it and told an 'inside plant' technician to coordinate it. Remember now, in the 1950's - 1960's era, things were wide open on numbers, and area codes, etc. Plenty of them to go around, take your pick. The inside plant guy chose 744 as the 'new exchange' for the new centrex going in at City Hall. He swore up and down it was just a 'random pick' from the tons of free exchanges available (wink!), but it turned out later to be to great of a coincidence. During Vietnam, when Chicago Police and Mayor Daley (first) and other politicians were at their worst, Illinois Bell had its own troubles. They had a houseful of phreaks, war protestors and general malcontents working for them. I don't think they even knew all that back then, and later blamed it on their personnel/employment office. Like hell he picked it at random! 744 letter wise turns out to spell PIG ... and during Vietnam, with the nation in a total uproar for months at a time, 'pig' was common vernacular for police officers, the mayor and whoever worked at 'the Hall'.
With a straight face, Bell took the guy's numbering assignment. The tech (as we call them now) didn't say a word about it to anyone. It got in all the AT&T databases (the only game in town in those days) and the city announced it in press releases; the newspapers made up courtesy phone directories of the new numbers, etc. The new numbering system was put in effect. For close to a month afterward, the old number RANdolph 6-8000 was answered by a manual intercept at City Hall by operators who responded saying 'what department are you trying to call?' and then advising the caller, please make a note of the new number 744-xxxx and making the caller dial it. They couldn't revoke it at that point. Then 'someone' (the tech insists it was not him) informed the best-selling, highly-circulated (in those days) paper called the 'Chicago Seed' of the REAL meaning of 744. Chicago Seed could best be described from those days as a totally anti-war, anti-police, anti-all government newspaper. Everyone read it, but no one would admit they liked to read it. At times, it was totally obscene as well. A huge 'underground' circulation. No one would ever admit they read it, certainly not the white collar office workers, politicians, etc. The Seed was always telling very humorous and often times lurid, ribald stories about Chicago police, politicians, etc, their sexual encounters (often times figments of imagination, etc) and always tie ins to the Vietnam War. Always ... that was the Seed. People would glance furtively over their shoulder before reading the latest epidodes in the Seed.
So 'someone' told the Seed about 'those numbers, 744, and their alphabetic equivilents. As a 'public service to its readers' the Seed also printed a new phone directory, but they used a pirated copy of the internal city hall phone directory mixed in with 'public' numbers and in every instance of 744-anything the Seed printed PIG-anything. For example, 'if you wish to call the pigs just dial PIG and the four digit extension of the pig you wish to reach.' The anti-war people had a great laugh out of it, and the timid white collar workers would look furtively at it on their bus ride to work or home and snicker about it also.
Mayor Daley the First did his usual blustering and foaming at the mouth including one of his famous slips of the tongue gaffes when he explained to television and newspaper reporters, "Our police officers in Chicago are not Pigs! They are human pigs" (then sort of startled he said "I meant human beans." One of his associates there on the stage with him tried to shush him up and get him to sit down and be quiet without a lot of success.
Illinois Bell insisted in an embarassed tone of voice that it was 'all just a coincidence' but internally they started seeking out "which one of our people did that", and I guess they never did figure out who. They had ample-plenty exchange numbers to pick from in those days; no problems of area-code splits, etc. They did wise up to the internal problems they were having however, and started cleaning their own house vigorously. Because of labor laws, human rights laws, etc, they were unable to just fire a bunch of workers, and they were sort of afraid to do that anyway. They had a lot of rebellious workers there at the time, both in plant and the business office, people who were 'to smart for their own good', that would cause problems. But they were able to make life hell for quite a few workers there at Ma Bell, and get them to resign on their own over a three or four year period. By the time Vietnam ended (1972 ?) Illinois Bell had gotten their own house back in order also.
About four years ago, City Hall needed to expand further and from 744 they also took over from Ameritech 745 and I think 747 also. Mayor Daley the Second is almost as much of a corker as his father was. I know the police were moved on to 745 and the public library and schools took over 747 I think.