At 2:00 p.m. on Friday, February 16, 1968, history was
made. That’s when state Rep. Rankin Fite made the
first call to 911 in the nation.
U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill answers the first 911 call at the
Haleyville (Ala.) police station with “Hello.” Directly
behind him is Bull Connor, head of the state’s Public
Service Commission, and B.W. Gallagher, president
of the Alabama Telephone Co.
February 16, 1968 saw the first official "911" call placed in the
United States. Now taken for granted as first course of action
in the event of emergency by nearly all of the nation’s 327
million people, 911 is a relatively recent invention and was
still not standard across the United States for many years
after its adoption by Congress.
As telephones became common in U.S. households, fire
departments around the country recommended establishing
a single, simple number to be dialed in the event of a fire or
other emergency.
A similar system had been implemented in the United Kingdom
decades earlier, in 1936, when the code 999 was chosen for
emergency telegraph and phone communications.
The Federal Communications Commission decided to act in
1967, but the number itself came not from the government
but from AT&T.
The red phone used to make the first call to 911.
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