History of "911"
Who Designed and Installed
the First U.S. 911 System?
- B.W. (Bob) Gallagher - President of
the Alabama Telephone Company a subsidiary of Continental
Telephone. Initiated and directed the overall 911 effort.
- Robert (Bob) Fitzgerald - Inside State
Plant Manager. Designed and engineered the needed circuitry for
the first U.S. 911 system.
- Jimmy White - Technician on 911
installation team.
- Glenn Johnston - Technician on
911installation team.
- Al Bush - Technician on 911
installation team.
- Pete Gosa - Technician on 911
installation team.
"The race to be first will always be part
of human nature as long as a bridge remains to be crossed, mountains
to be climbed, or a telephone exchange to be cut-over, with a team
working together as Alabama Telephone had."
The ability to dial a single number to report emergencies was first
used in Great Britain, in 1937. The British could dial 999 to call
for police, medical or fire departments, from anywhere in the
country. In 1958, the American Congress first investigated a
universal emergency number for the United States and finally passed
the legal mandate in 1967. The very first American 911 call was
placed on February 16, 1968 in Haleyville, Alabama made by Alabama
Speaker of the House, Rankin Fite and answered by Congressman Tom
Bevill.
The new emergency number had to be three numbers that were not in
use in the United States or Canada as the first three numbers of any
phone number or area code, and the numbers had to be easy to use.
The Federal Trade Commission along with AT&T (which held a monopoly
on phone services at that time) originally announced the plans to
build the first 911 system in Huntington, Indiana. Bob Gallagher,
President of the Alabama Telephone, was annoyed that the independent
phone industry had not been consulted. Gallagher decided to beat
AT&T to the punch line and have the first 911 emergency service
built in Haleyville, Alabama.
B.W. (Bob) Gallagher Robert (Bob)
Fitzgerald
Gallagher consulted with Bob Fitzgerald, his state inside-plant
manager. Fitzgerald let Gallagher know that he could do it.
Gallagher moved quickly getting approvals from Continental Telephone
and the Alabama Public Service commissioner, and releasing a press
release on February 9 announcing that the Alabama Telephone Company
would be making history.
Fitzgerald examined all twenty-seven Alabama exchanges choosing the
Haleyville location, and then engineered the new circuitry and made
the modifications needed for the existing equipment. Fitzgerald and
his team worked around the clock to install the first 911 emergency
system in under one week. The team worked their regular day jobs in
Fayette, traveling each night to Haleyville to do the 911 work
during off-peak hours. The work was completed on February 16, 1968,
at exactly 2 p.m. celebrated with a team cheer of "Bingo!"
