eli5 how you could pick up a telephone and hear another conversation(not in the same house)

Question

when i was a kid you could pick up the landline and hit the call button and join whatever conversation was already happening. though i’m reading salems lot right now, and they mention picking up the phone and hearing a conversation from those i know are not in the same home. how did this work???

In: 0

Answer 1

We finished paying off our party line about the time we got our first cell phone. The phone company would upgrade the line to single party, but you had to pay like $10/month for 20 years or something to pay back the cost of it.