Self-Guiding Tour

#2   Street Corner Alarm Box

In the 1880s, telegraphic fire alarm boxes were installed on Winnipeg street corners for notifying the fire department of a fire before the general availability of telephones. When the lever was pulled, the boxes would transmit a 4-digit code which identified their location within the city. Firefighters would reference the code guide to figure out if the alarm was in their district.

This particular alarm box sat at the corner of Manitoba Avenue and Keewatin Street and was removed in 1979 when Manitoba Telephone System (MTS) replaced all alarm boxes with payphones.

Before the invention and installation of alarm boxes, a bell ringing system was used to notify firefighters of a fire. In 1874, the alerting system consisted of a bell in front of the Grace Church (Main St. & Water Ave.). Whenever someone needed to summon the brigade, they rang the bell to the correlating number of the ward containing the fire. The city was so small that there were only four wards. But, confusion was a problem as people would continuously ring the bell because of their panic.

In 1880, City Council appointed an official “bell ringer” to alleviate the continuous confusion caused by citizens incorrectly utilizing the alarm bell system.
In 1927, Winnipeg became the first city in Canada to have an “automatic fire link”. By dialing 100 on your telephone, you would be connected to the fire department. This system was in place for 32 years before the introduction of the 999 system on June 21, 1959, and it eventually became the 911 system in 1975.

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