The beginning of the ESN is somewhat vague.  One of the original "gang" says he believes it started in 1958 when a bunch of younger hams decided to rebel and break away from the  "old ways" of stodgy nets and start one that was fun. Boy did they ever!! I, for one, think that the ESN kept many a young lad or lass off the streets at night.  The faithful old ESN became a real legend.  The old timers took it upon themselves to chastise the group of kids for using "fast break" (similar to vox but manually done) and having fun generally. But, we survived! In fact, several groups came and went during the years of ESN.  I do not know when it ceased but I would guess in the 1970's.   I do know many years later a new group of teenagers tried to reinstate it (in the 1990s) but I guess it just was not the same and did not last.

The following added by Mike, W7HUT

In 1958 I had gotten into traffic handling and joined the Washington Amateur Radio Traffic System (WARTS) - a group of really old farts, but a very BIG old group. WARTS met every night at 1800 hours on 3970 (God help you if you got caught on 3970 around then and you weren't a member!)
I also began working with the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS - out of band at 3295) because I was keen on joining the Air Force. By 1959 I was 16 and had been a ham for 4 years - I also had a Class 2 Radio and 2 summers of commercial radio work in Alaska.
Because of the age of the WARTS group, and their mild intolerance of we younger hams, a few of us hatched the diabolical idea of the ESN. It all began at 1700 hours the afternoon of Sunday October 25th, 1959 with the first call to order. 3 1/2 hours later at 2030 we ended our first get together - that was some organizational meeting! Our frequency was 3920 (A3 of course) and I was running all of 30 watts... out of a highly modified DX-20 (homebuilt VFO and modulator.)
Starting the next Tuesday (don't ask me why we skipped Monday) we began meeting every night, same time & frequency According to my log, within the first month or two early regulars included:
K7ABB Dave - Seattle
K7AST Don - Seattle
K7BNN Jay - Chehalis
K7CTH Mike - Centralia
K7DIW Carl - Seaside, Oregon (we were inclusive even then)
K7DKO Jerry - Everson
K7EID Les - Langley
K7EXT John - Castle Rock
K7GYO Gary - East Stanwood
K7HSM Howard - Twisp
K7IIJ Al - Port Orchard
K7INK Bill - Yakima
K7IST Al - Auburn
W7JHS Cormac - Prosser
W1KGW/7 Don - Port Townsend
W7SYS Harold - North Bend
W7ZFX Craig - Winlock

We'd meet around 1630-1645 to warm up and then launch at 1700... growth was electric and it was a very fun group of true friends. At 1800 hours a few of us would move up to WARTS - by this time they were aware that we were trumping their cozy monopoly, but they tolerated us :-)
I noticed after Del posted a copy of one of our early newsletters that I wrote a nasty editorial about people relaying traffic through WARTS that could have been directly delivered by ESN members! The things we got worked up about in those days :-)
Looking at the list above, you can see how homogeneously young the group was - K7's starting in the A's and working upward - my call was a reissued fluke.
Hope this helps a bit with the early history - I'll bring my original log when I see you all at very long last in Bothell!!

(back to Donna)

Our language was usually above board and we tried very hard to keep our signal width to a minimum, compared to "some" who were active A.M. operators on 3.960 and were 40 kc wide on each side.  When we ventured onto Single Sideband whoooooooooopppeeee boy we did get into trouble then!  We had many a carrier thrown on top of us trying to get us to stop.  But, stop we didn't!! We even managed to handle some traffic and handled it very well at that! Speaking of traffic, that reminds me that we had a couple of very well known traffic handlers who were "MUCH" older than us who frequently checked in.  Try these for size......W7DZX, Jack and Bert W7ADT.
Our roster was varied...from all parts of Washington, British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and even Northern California. We have a copy of an original roster on another page.

I think I can safely say that the most consistently weak signal of the gang was Joanie, K7ABO. I always envied that she could purr like a cat and I couldn't.  So, I took up the grand art of flirting so I could be as popular as she was!
The most consistently strong signal in this group was Del, K7BUC on A.M. with his deep sexy voice.  No wonder he was a DJ. I think he could compare with certain 3.960/3.970 signals and probably beat them!  I am mainly thinking of a grand legend of the past, George, W7ORK. Remember him?   Another consistently strong signal was our own K7NCG, Jim.

We are each getting older now and in those days we thought we were forever young.  Our minds may be active and still think a lot the same, but the old bodies certainly do not!  It is at this time I must report that we, sadly, have several silent keys.All will be sadly missed but fondly remembered.

73's and 88's ... 30.