22 Sep 2025 Boston Street History: Entry 01-Boston’s Fire Alarm Boxes
Here HBI’s Executive Director, Doc Becca Kemper, takes to the streets to document some lesser known fun facts about Boston’s historic cityscape.
Boston is home to about 3,500 fire alarm boxes, a historic system that still serves the city today. First installed in 1852—over two decades before the telephone—these red boxes made Boston the first city in the world to use telegraph technology for municipal fire alerts. The system was a pioneering collaboration between physician, Dr. William F. Channing, and electrical engineer, Moses G. Farmer. The system works on simple signals, transmitting the unique number of the activated box to the Fire Alarm Office, where dispatchers send the nearest engines to respond.
On December 28, 2018, when Boston’s 911 system went down for a day, the Fire Department directed residents to use them—and sure enough, they helped firefighters respond quickly to a North End fire on Endicott Street (Boston Herald, Jonathan Ng 2018, December 28)
Keep an eye out for these historic boxes throughout Boston!
Thanks Boston Hidden Gems, Boston Fire Historical Society (box locations), FireRescue1 Group, National Inventors Hall of Fame, and WBUR News for the research & contemporary use reporting!
