WEST GOSHEN >> The numbers have been left mostly to memory.
Up until 1994, residents of Chester County had to choose from one of more than three dozen telephone numbers, all at least seven digits, to contact emergency responders for a fire, a crime or a serious medical condition. People who had lived in the county all their lives were used to this fact of life, but with the county’s explosion in population many had lived in areas where the easy-to-dial 911 emergency number was in place.
Dialing that would get them nowhere in Chester County. So on Jan. 1, 1995, the county’s emergency services communications network officially adopted the 911 call number for all county residents. The ceremonial first call came to the emergency operations center from the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 11 in West Chester.
On Thursday, county officials marked the 50th anniversary of the first 911 call in the United States with a ceremony at the Department of Emergency Services 911 center in the basement of the Government Services Center, with cake and congratulations to the men and women who work there.
“You guys are the ones who do all the hard work,” commissioners Chairwoman Michelle Kichline said at a meeting Tuesday at which the commissioners adopted a resolution marking the anniversary. “You certainly make a difference.”
Although it may seem quaint today to think of a different emergency call system than the 911 number, it was not until the late 1980s that more than half the county’s locales used the easy-to-remember, easy-to-dial number to call police, fire, and ambulance services.
“The idea of one number … is incredible,” said John Haines, the assistant director of the county’s DES, at the commissioners meeting Tuesday. “911 has become such a part of daily life that we forget that in 1994 in Chester County there were 43 numbers that people had to remember to reach emergency services.”
Now, 98.9 percent of all locations in the U.S. and Canada use the number.
It all started in the 1960s, when the Federal Communications Commission began paying attention to the cause of a standard number to use for emergency dialings. The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. decided to choose the 911 number, unlike other counties like Great Britain that had selected the number 999.
AT&T was set to begin using the number in early 1968, but the owners of the Alabama Telephone Co. grew impatient. So on Feb. 16, 1968, the state Speaker of the House there, a man named Rankin Fite, picked up the receiver of a bright red rotary telephone in the town of Haleyville, Ala., and dialed the town’s police station from its City Hall, and heard the voice of the town’s congressman pick up. (You can see that phone in a Haleyville museum.)
AT&T’s first call came on March 1, 1968, in the Indiana hometown of the congressman who sponsored the legislation that would designate 911 as the national standard call number.
In 2017, Chester County received more than 160,000 911 calls, with 75 percent of those calls coming from mobile phones. Residents have the option of calling or texting 911 in an emergency, and can ensure all important personal information is available to 911 telecommunicators through the Smart911 system. The county’s investment in a new emergency voice digital radio system increased radio coverage to 99 percent of the county, further ensuring the safety of county residents as well as the police, fire and emergency medical services men and women who respond to 911 calls.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
