Research no comments
I've been doing some research this weekend, and by research, I mean Xeroxing old phonebooks.
I've had some old USC phonebooks in the house and have used them here from time to time, but old Columbia phonebooks are surprisingly hard to come by. I believe I've hit all the antique malls in town at one time or another without any result, and even went so far as to put an ad on Craigslist. Even that one though only netted me a 2000 book (though it is much appreciated!), not anything from the 50s through 90s.
Then I had one of those D'oh! moments and went down to the RCPL on Assembly street and it turns out they have AT&T/Bellsouth/Southern Bell books back into the 1930s! (They also have "city directories" and some of the off-brand phonebooks as well). These are all on the third floor in the local history room. The only fly in the ointment is that they don't circulate, so you have to look at them there, and Xeroxes are $0.20 per sheet. (Perhaps I'll try taking some copies with the closing-cam, like I'm starring in my own spy movie..).
Anyway, I've got a number of old Yellow Pages ads that will be turning up here as new posts and updates to old posts.