Death of the Dial Tone: Nebraska’s dwindling pay phones draw lots of curiosity, few calls

Lane Handke called his wife, Cathleen, the other day to tell her he was bringing home the shelves they needed to finish their cabinet. The call cost him 25 cents.

Then, the Pierce physician phoned a friend in Omaha just to say hello. This call cost him an additional eight quarters.

Handke made his calls from a pay telephone standing outside of the Pierce Telephone Co. building. He felt drawn to this pay phone by curiosity. Pulled toward it by nostalgia.

“I hadn’t used a pay phone in decades,” he said. “People were looking and wondering what I was doing. I thought it was kind of cool.”

The pay phone in the northeast Nebraska town is one of 81 still operating in the state, according to the most up-to-date numbers from the Nebraska Public Service Commission. 

The few that remain tend to owe their continued existence to a six-decades-old state law meant to ensure access to once-essential technology. 

Today, they’re more a curiosity than a line of communication.

“They are a rare find these days,” said Cullen Robbins, director of telecommunications for the Public Service Commission. “Everyone has a cellphone.”

Robbins said working pay phones typically remain in places such as airports — Omaha’s Eppley Airfield has one in each terminal — or hospital emergency rooms like Nebraska Medicine’s ER, which has one tucked in a corner. 

“You don’t seem to find them at gas stations like you used to,” Robbins said.

Actually, you can … if you know where to look. 

One is available at the Eagle Travel Center where U.S. Highways 34 and 283 meet in Arapahoe. The phone, which requires a credit card for use, is by the propane tank refill station on the building’s east side. 

Misty Barber, store manager, said she hasn’t seen a single person use that phone during the eight years she has worked at the travel center. 

“I grew up with pay phones — it’s one of those things that draws my attention, but little use.”

Another working pay phone is inside Scott’s Place, a convenience store that sits where U.S. Highways 20 and 183 intersect in Bassett. Owner Scott Connery said he inherited the phone when he purchased the store 38 years ago. 

Scott’s Place used to have a pay phone in a booth outside the store. “It got run over,” Connery said. 

The inside phone does get occasional use — a trucker needing a landline, a motorist whose battery has died or someone without a cellphone. It functions far more often as a prop.

“People take their picture next to it all the time.”

A regulation in place since 1968 requires certificated telephone service providers in Nebraska to maintain a pay phone for public use in each municipality it serves. Service providers can ask the commission for a waiver to take a pay phone out of service because of vandalism, lack of use or excessive cost to maintain the phone.

Robbins said the commission typically receives — and grants — several requests for waivers each year, the most recent coming from the Hemingford Telephone Co.

The rapid demise of pay phones in some ways mirrors their rapid rise. More than 2 million pay phones existed in the United States in 1969, a century after the first one was installed outside of a bank in Connecticut.

Now, according to the Federal Communications Commission, fewer than 100,000 remain. The Nebraska Public Service Commission relies on reports from its carriers to track pay phones in Nebraska: 1,150 remained in the state in 2016, 417 in 2020 and 81 in 2024.

Three working pay phones can be found in Aurora. There’s one in the lobby of the old telephone company building, another on the second floor of the Hamilton County Courthouse and a third near Unit 57 at the Aurora Inn, a longtime hotel where you can get a room on a weeknight for $67 plus tax.

All three are operated by Hamilton Telecommunications, a company headquartered in the central Nebraska town.

“We’ll keep existing phones in service as long as we can, if we can repair them,” said Kiley James, Hamilton Telecommunications’ marketing and customer service manager. “It can be expensive.”

Lorie Hartzell, Hamilton County register of deeds clerk, said she can see the courthouse pay phone from her office. She pays little attention to it unless someone is using it, or it’s ringing.

“A kid called 911 on it – and it worked,” she said.

The phone at the Aurora Inn attracts more interest than use, said Brandee Glynn, property manager. She said she recently watched a man photograph himself with the phone in multiple poses. 

Glynn said she believes the owners should include the pay phone when marketing the inn. “I know there aren’t many out there — and not many people know what one looks like.”

Curiosity led Handke to try the phone in Pierce. Weeks before making the calls to his wife and his friend in Omaha, Handke had picked up the phone. No dial tone. He asked Jeff Kesting, telephone company plant manager, why it wasn’t working. 

“I don’t check it very often,” Kesting said, “because, to be honest, it doesn’t get much use.” 

Kesting discovered the line from the telephone building was bad. “It was an easy fix.” 

The telephone company manager removed nearly $20 in quarters and encouraged Handke to try the phone again. 

The pay phone in a booth outside Delores Ruzicka’s Country Creations store in Verdigre draws a crowd — especially when the Knox County community hosts its annual Kolache Days. “It pops with people.”

One problem: The phone stopped working about a year ago. Ruzicka said she was recently told it couldn’t be restored to working order. “I’m sad, but at least the phone and booth won’t be taken away,” she said.

Working or not, she said, people still listen for a dial tone and check the coin return slot for change.

Ruzicka said she often places change in the return slot for fun. The coins always are gone the next time she checks. “It’s always visitors to Verdigre who are in there checking.” 

The phone in Verdigre has history. 

Ruzicka tells the story of a local who would call his girlfriend each Sunday evening from the pay phone so they could have private conversations. 

The decision to use the pay phone must have been a good call, Ruzicka said. They’re married now, and have three children.