The 1852 Hunt · DETOUR · North End
Boston's first fire alarm came from this street in 1852, and so did the one that mattered when 911 went down in 2018.
Boston's first real fire alarm, on April 29, 1852, came from a church station on a short North End street. In December 2018, with 911 down, a resident pulled the street box on that same street for a fire around the corner. Whether today's box stands where the 1852 station did is still unproven. Get off at Haymarket and walk up.
This is a detour on The 1852 Hunt.
The plate
Collected on site
Corner of Cooper and Endicott Streets, North End
Directions
The Globe's 2020 story says the 2018 fire on Endicott Street was a dryer fire, at number 94.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Argue about it
Is the box on this corner the one that sent Boston's first fire alarm?
Both sides, with their sources, are on the story card in the app.
In these collections: Firsts (Contested)
Near Haymarket · Near North Station · Near Bowdoin · Near Government Center
Sources (7)
- A Complete History of the Boston Fire Department, including the Fire-Alarm Service and the Protective Department, from 1630 to 1888Arthur Wellington Brayley (Boston: John P. Dale & Co.) · 1889
- Fire Boxes (PublicSafety/OpenData MapServer layer 1)City of Boston GIS · Data dated 2015 per Alarm Club; layer has no date fields
- Boston fire alarm system, first of its kind in the world, received first call 168 years agoMatt Berg, The Boston Globe · 2020-04-29
- 911 outage: fire boxes in BostonWBUR · 2018-12-30
- Boston Resident Pulls Street-Side Box To Report Fire During 911 OutageCBS Boston · 2018-12-28
- October 2026 - Fire Prevention Month + The Almanac - FINAL PACKAGEAlarm Club (internal Notion) · 2026-09-29
- HardwareBoston Fire Historical Society · n.d.