By the time of the movie, 1954, pay phones were a standard fixture
> virtually everywhere in cities. The building he was visiting had a
> Western Union office in the lobby and certainly would've had a bank of
> pay telephone booths; all office buildings had them in the lobby.
It was certainly difficult to find any public telephone in Denton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas and home to two universities, in that time frame, nor any business that would allow you to make a collect telephone call. I speak from experience. Denton was served by General Telephone.
[ ... ] I don't know about telegraph rates, but long distance telephone rates
> were based on distance. A call 1,000 miles away cost considerably more
> than a call 100 miles away. If telegraph rates were flat by distance,
> then telegrams would be more likely sent for longer distances than > short distances.
Telegraph rates, like telephone rates, were set by distance. I once had occasion to send a local telegram, and I believe they were common in some cities.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And there were also, like phones, both day and night rates on telegrams, and promotional deals, such as a person who picked up a telegram in the public office was entitled to a special cheap rate if they responded within a few minutes while still in the office. PAT]