(Image courtesy of Washington State Library)

Nowadays, many people dislike receiving their own hard copy of the telephone directory. But even the anti-phone book crowd might be intrigued by our third and final Library jewel for December: an 1893 telephone directory published by the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company.

The phone book was for the company’s Northwest Division and covered much of the Puget Sound region south to Portland and other communities in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.  As the photo shows, the publishers included a simple map showing the extent of regional long distance lines on the back cover.

In addition to this very rare item, the State Library possesses a 1906 King County phone directory and phone books for the Tacoma area stretching back to 1940.

We’ll launch our online poll for the December Library jewels on Wednesday, so make sure to check out our three contenders and then vote on your favorite!