Haha, Junior Samples - now there's some Americana!
I remember my grandmother had a party line when I was really young. My parents had a private line, so I recall thinking the party line was really strange. Same city, I guess my grandmother's part of town just got updated later.
If it was anything like our area, initially there was a limited number of private lines available and you had to pay a monthly fee to get one. A lot of people couldn't afford the line, or didn't want to pay. Dad was Army, and there were times the party line caused issues when he needed to use the phone, so he ponied up the bucks. Eventually all lines became private and the party lines went away.