Editing Police box (section)

== United States ==

The first police telephone was installed in [[Albany, New York]] in 1877, one year after [[Alexander Graham Bell]] patented the telephone. Call boxes for use by both police and trusted members of the public were first installed in [[Chicago]] in 1880, initially housed in kiosks to protect the inner signal boxes from the weather and to limit access to them so as to discourage false alarms.<ref name="History of the Chicago Police; John Joseph Flinn & John Elbert Wilkie (1887).">"History of the Chicago Police", John Joseph Flinn & John Elbert Wilkie (1887).</ref> In 1883, [[Washington, D.C.]] installed its own system; [[Detroit]] installed police call boxes in 1884, and in 1885, [[Boston]] followed suit.<ref name="Stewart" />{{rp |3}} These were direct line telephones usually placed inside a metal box on a post which could often be accessed by a key or breaking a glass panel. In Chicago, the telephones were restricted to police use, but the boxes also contained a dial mechanism which members of the public could use to signal different types of alarms via telegraph: there were 11 signals, including "[[Police car|Police Wagon]] Required", "Thieves", "Forgers", "Murder", "Accident", "Fire" and "Drunkard".<ref name="Stewart" />{{rp |4}}