Artifact of the Month: July 2016

Ketchikan Museums' Artifact of the Month is fire alarm call box made by the Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Company. When phone service was still sparse in Ketchikan, citizens relied on call boxes on street corners throughout the community to notify responders of a fire. This box, #116, kept vigil at the corner of Front and Dock streets. Local resident, Paula Williamson, acquired this call box and donated it to the museum.

The first telegraph fire alarm system was developed in 1852 and a few years later John Gamewell acquired rights to sell the system in the Deep South. Following the Civil War and issues with patents, Gamewell partnered with John F. Kennard in 1879 to create the Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Company, which still operates today.

By the 1930s, dozens of cast iron call boxes were positioned on corners within Ketchikan city limits. When a fire broke out, someone would need to run to the box and pull the handle sending a pulsed electrical signal coded to the fire department to correspond with that box's number and location. Box codes appeared in the phone book from approximately 1938 to 1974. With the advent of 911, improved alarm monitoring, and now the wide use of cellular phones, the fire alarm telegraph system has become largely outdated, though it is still used in some cities. The last of Ketchikan's call boxes were removed in 1983 after a high volume of false alarms.

Ketchikan Museums, KM 2010.2.15.1