Product Description
This one-inch (1:12) scale dollhouse miniature fire alarm box is made in the USA by Island Crafts & Miniatures. It measures about 1" high and is painted cast metal. A fire alarm box is an outdoor device used for notifying a fire department of a fire. Early boxes used the telegraph system and were the main method of calling the fire department to a neighborhood in the days before people had telephones. When the box is triggered, a spring-loaded wheel spins and taps out a signal onto the fire alarm telegraph wire, indicating the box number. The receiver at a fire station then can match the number to the neighborhood. Unmanned or volunteer departments would instead have a Diaphone horn that sounded the box number. The boxes are a form of street furniture still in service in many places, though many towns and cities have removed them due to cost of maintaining the obsolete system. This action has been blocked by courts in New York, where the boxes are seldom used for any purpose bar making hoax calls.