A payphone is a public telephone that you operate by inserting coins or a prepaid card. Before cellphones became common in the 1990s and 2000s, payphones stood in glass booths on street corners, in shopping malls, at gas stations, and outside restaurants. If you needed to make a call while away from home, you'd find a payphone, drop in a quarter or two, and dial the number.

The phones got their name because you literally had to pay to use them, usually 25 or 50 cents for a local call. Many payphones had a metal cord connecting the handset to the box, and they featured a small slot where you inserted your coins. You'd hear a distinctive clinking sound as the quarters dropped through the machine.

Payphones were once everywhere, but they've nearly disappeared now that almost everyone carries a cellphone. In the 1990s, there were over two million payphones across the United States. Today, finding a working payphone feels like discovering an artifact from another era. Some still exist in airports, hospitals, or prisons, where they serve people who don't have access to personal phones. If you've seen an old movie or TV show where someone rushes to a phone booth on the street to make an urgent call, that's a payphone in action.