On eBay: A Payphone From the Donut Shack in Lexington, Kentucky

A phone number seen on this beauty of an old 3-slot rotary dial payphone appears on The Payphone Project’s historical dataset of payphone numbers and locations, seeming to tell us that the payphone up for sale on eBay was once used at a place called the Donut Shack in Lexington, Kentucky. I do not sell, buy, or otherwise deal in payphones. I do, however, take special interest in connecting vintage payphones to their historical roots via the Payphone Project’s archived data. This old phone looks like a beauty, too. Manufactured by the Automatic Electric Company this green phone is described by the eBay seller as a rarity in that company’s output. Unfortunately no keys are included.

The only problem with connecting this payphone to a specific store in Lexington is that I cannot find anything through my paid resources or the public Internet to definitively say where the Donut Shack was located, or if this phone was used in a structure that is still standing.

I find two addresses for the Donut Shack in Lexington: The Payphone Project data says it was at 491 Georgetown, while Zomato.com has a listing for a Donut Shack at 901 Georgetown.

If either of these addresses is correct then the Donut Shack was either on Georgetown Street at the corner of Price Road, possibly on the site of today’s First African Baptist Church; or else it was at or near the site of today’s Speedway gas station, on Georgetown Road and Mercer Road. I am not familiar with the city of Lexington so sleuthing this sort of stuff can be difficult without access to sources like local phone books or newspapers from several years ago. A trip to the library might be in order, though finding something like a Lexington, Kentucky phone book from, say, the 1980s or 1990s in the New York City Public Library system sounds like a long shot. If anyone reading this is from Lexington and remembers the Donut Shack or has some proof of its previous address I would appreciate if you contacted me with information on its exact location.

The Donut Shack was owned by one Bobby Franklin Warmouth, who died in 2009 aged 61. Mr. Warmouth’s memorial page at FindaGrave.com, which looks like it might have lifted its content directly from The Lexington Herald-Leader, erroneously lists his date of birth, resulting in an incorrect age of death as 57.

If you are thinking of bidding on this beauty then you can do so knowing at least some part of its history as an actual working payphone, and not just some abstract leftover from yesteryear.