150 years ago today, December 5, 1864, the Chicago Tribune carried this item regarding fire alarm telegraph boxes to be installed in the city. The first was to be installed at the corner of Canal and Polk streets.

One spotting a fire would simply unlock the box, turn the crank, and the alarm would be transmitted to the central station, “unerringly, beyond the possibility of mistake.”

108 such boxes were to be installed. The keys would be given to policemen “and to trustworrthy persons resident nearest the place where the boxes are stationed.” This system, it was said, “cannot fail to vastly diminish the destructiveness of fires in Chicago.”

It’s not known whether such a box was installed in the vicinity of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow seven years later.

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