A few years back, I was able to buy an old Gamewell Police Call box from a friend back in Detroit. in the first 2/3rds of the 20th century, these were critical to the Detroit Police Department of communication with both beat officers and patrol cars, even after the advent of two-way radio. Anyway, I restored it, and it sits in my garage here in Henderson, Nevada, nearly 2k away from where it must have sat for decades.
The telegraph unit was much like a fire alarm pull box, which tripped a relay and sent a numbered signal to the precinct station it was in. Beat officers and patrol cars alike had to call in hourly, and "pull" the handle so the operator knew what location they were calling from.
With the advent of 2-way portable radios in the mid-60's, the Gamewell call boxes begin to find there way out. By the mid seventies, the Public Lighting Commission, which had maintained the call box system for decades, started pulling them out of service. They were all taken to the main PLC garage at W. Warren and Lawton, where most were sold for scrap save for a small percentages of old time police officers who scoffed up one for memories. I was one such.
To a beat officer with no radio back in the day, they were a life line.
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