Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
The growth of Southern California was reflected in a Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. report issued yesterday. The company said that the number of telephones it has in service in the Southland has increased more than 50 per cent since Pearl Harbor, more than 25 per cent since V-J Day.
R.L. Sawyers, division telephone manager, said that at the beginning of the war the company had 852,000 telephones in service in Southern California. The number had reached 1,021,000 by the time peace came and today it stands at 1,290,000. The increase for the last two years reached a total of 269,000 telephones.
And there are still insufficient telephones for all potential subscribers. About 149,000 applicants are waiting.
Los Angeles Telephone Exchanges:
Splash!
When visitors wonder why Jim Wallin, Arcadia planning commissioner, has no diving board for his swimming pool, he tells them about his big impulsive moment. Not long ago a nephew from out of state, a husky lad of 21, visited him and kept practicing triple flips, striking the water with a tremendous splash.
August 13, 1959: Did Miss Japan have plastic surgery? 
She was a pretty little girl with natural blond hair and baby-blue eyes with stars in them.
August 12, 1959: “People said it was just a whim — that they couldn’t understand why a young girl wanted to study law — that it would all go to waste — that I’d just spend time and money and then get married.”
August 12, 1959: One man is killed and six are injured in the collapse of a bridge being built over the Pacific Electric tracks on 
Wait a minute, the Beats reject things like beauty contests. What’s with this?
Aug. 11, 1969: The Times brings out an extra for the La Bianca killings.
ladailymirror.com 