Alaska has a second area code?
 

You learn something new every day!

I guess you are referring to Hyder's use of 250.

This is an annomoly. You get similar situations with some area codes crossing state lines in isolated cases. As the previous poster said this has to do with this town is a border town that is highly reliant on the people of the other border to provide things such as phone service.

There are some other geographic annomolies.

For example there is at least one county in California who gets a big energy break because its electricity source is Nevada and thus pays Nevada rates and not California controlled rates.

Perhaps the only area code in the US where the code is possibly higher than the number of people using it. (obviously many more use 250 on the BC side)

Wonder if Hyder residents get dinged for international charges when they call someone else in Alaska?

With old phonelines they wouldnt because they get so many exchange numbers ( area code-exchange-xxxx ). Thus if it comes from these exchanges to the US its not an international call (though I wonder how the NSA interprets this...)


With cell carriers this happens all the time in places such as Buffalo/Niagara Falls where in parts of the city the closest cell tower is in Canada so the call gets routed through Canadian carriers lines. I think its Verizon and Rogers that share line routing/signals.

Never knew that...

Blasphemy! We need to de-Canadianize Hyder.. STAT!!! :mad: :D

That likely isnt the only area along the border with Canada.

This reminds me of the town of Lanett, AL...it's a border town with GA, and along that border is the Eastern/Central Time Zone border. The neighboring town across the GA border is West Point, GA, which for a long time was a "company town" due to the dominance of the West Point Stevens mill. So, since so many Lanett residents worked for the mill, residents and businesses in Lanett observed Eastern Time to match the town where so many of its residents worked. And despite the decline of the company in West Point, Lanett still observes Eastern Time.

How did I learn all this? During a recent eastbound road trip I grabbed a hotel for the night in Lanett, and when I mentioned to the desk clerk that I would be waking up early to outrun Atlanta metro traffic the next morning, he explained to me that my room's clock radio was set to Eastern Time, and why. As anyone who's traveled through Atlanta knows, an hour on a work day makes ALL the difference to get through town and beat the traffic. Needless to say, the clock radio situation completely blew my mind that night, because my cell phone (my usual alarm clock source) was still displaying Central Time from its local cell signal. My body had no idea when to wake up that next morning.

Bonus: While writing this anecdote, I looked up the time zone situation on Wikipedia, and discovered it's more than just West Point Stevens and Lanett on that side of AL observing Eastern Time. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Time_Zone

Its because Columbus, Ga is a media market so many of the local communities around there just stay on eastern time because Columbus is on eastern time.

This is also why parts of Eastern Oregon are on Mountain time...because its on the border of Idaho and picks up Boise radio/tv stations.

Western Kansas along I-70 follow mountain time because many of its radio stations come from Denver.

AK does have more then one timezone too :p But not for the same reason...

Only one in Alaska that I've heard of.

But the Mountain Time section of Oregon is "official" whereas the other exceptions you mentioned are because of local custom.

Ehhh....no......


SOme of the counties in western Kansas are mountain time. Goodland, is being one.