Today’s email newsletter from the mayor contained a link to a great short video produced by the Newton Fire Department that explains the details behind those iconic red fire alarm boxes around the city.

That piqued my interest because those fire alarms were manufactured by the Gamewell company right here in Upper Falls and sold to 100’s of cities around the country for the next 100 years.

The factory was at the corner of Oak & Chestnut St.  That building has recently been sold, refurbished, and re-christened as “Telegraph” which is sort of a fitting name.

In the photo below, the big building was the Gamewell factory and the railroad tracks across the street are what is now the Upper Falls Greenway at the Depot Coffee Shop.

A quick Internet search  pulled up a fascinating detail about the history of the Gamewell alarms that I would love to learn more about.

This document describes how two Boston men (Dr Channing and Mr Farmer) filed the original patents for the alarm in 1854.  In 1855 John Gamewell saw a lecture about the system and bought the rights to the patents.

… and here’s where there’s a mysterious story that’s never really fully explained. 

“After the Civil War, the U.S. Government seizes the Fire Alarm Telegraph patents and auctions them off. 1867 John F. Kennard of Boston purchases the Fire Alarm Telegraph patents and returns them to John N. Gamewell, forming a partnership. Kennard and Company is established in Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts to manufacture the fire alarm system.”

How or why the government seized the patents and auctioned them off is left unexplained.  In any case, once Kennard and Gamewell got the patents back, they were off and running for the next 100 years.

The other pretty amazing detail of all this, is a technical one: backwards compatibility.   These days we’ve got used to technical products having shorter and shorter life spans.  You buy today’s technical product and it often won’t work with a product from 10 years ago … and good luck getting parts or service on the 10 year old version.   The Gamewell alarms have had a 100+ year life span with an incredible amount of backwards, and forwards compatibility between old and new components.

Here’s something else I wrote a while ago about the Gamewell alarms.  At this point I’m sure you’re beginning to think I’ve got some weird obsession with them …and you wouldn’t be wrong ;-)

Thanks to the Newton Fire Department for shedding some light on this bit of Newton history and fire technology.