The Great Renumbering

September 10, 1960 was a red-letter date in Omaha's telephone history!

Late Saturday night, Omaha went from a two-letter, four digit, to a seven-digit numbering plan, to allow Omaha to join the nationwide Direct Distance Dialing plan.

This was a 'hard cut' with no period of permissive dialing when old and new numbers would work.

Lettered exchange names were totally eliminated (All-Digit Dialing), and there was no attempt to retain any of the legacy prefix numbers. The legacy prefixes were reassigned as follows:

• Douglas Street:
  
  ATlantic - 341
  JAckson - 342
  EXpress - 344
  HArney - 345
  WEbster - 346
  YEllowstone - 347
  TIme - 844
  
  
• Izard Street:
  
  WAlnut - 551
  GLendale - 553
  REgent - 556
  CApital - 558
  
  
• Fowler Street:
  
  PLeasant - 451
  PRospect - 453
  KEnwood - 455
  
  
• O Street:
  
  MArket - 731
  ORchard - 733
  
  
• Bellevue:
  
  BEllevue - 291
  
  
• Millard:
  
  334 (Joined Omaha toll-free calling area)
  
  
• Papillion:
  
  339 (Joined Omaha toll-free calling area)
  
  
• Council Bluffs (still long distance to/from Omaha):
  
  COuncilBluffs: 322
  CouncilBluffs-3: 323
  

I was told that some, not all Omaha offices, were able to identify and 'trap' misdialed calls to some old numbers and route them to an appropriate intercept for some time.