Over the years, there have been several versions of how the concept for 911 was developed, and how the first system in Haleyville was put together. Hopefully our main 911 History page sets much of the record straight. updated 8/18/05

We don't intend to discredit anyone's account of how 911 was born. However, in pursuit of the truth we should mention some of the myths about 911 that we have gathered, mostly from the Internet:

• 911 was developed by AT&T as a public service to improve emergency communications -- We don't have any reason to believe the persons who developed the concept of 911 were not honorable. However, there is speculation that AT&T was anxious to divert millions of emergency telephone calls-- and reduce costs-- that were being made to its "O" operators. See Alan Burton's account of 911 for more on this angle, and well as this 1998 report on the development of police technology.
  
  
• The numbers 911 were selected by computer, or ?? We have uncovered no definitive reason that AT&T selected the numbers 9-1-1 as the official emergency number. [see info from AT&T] However, we do know these facts:
  • Touch-Tone service was first introduced commercially in 1963, but took almost 10 years to become widespread.
  • The 411 and 611 numbers for Directory Assistance and Repair Service were introduced about 1966 in the Bell System.
  • The North American Numbering Plan was introduced by AT&T in 1947 and established rules for formatting areas codes, and the central office code (the first three digits of an individual phone number). Those rules were:
    • the middle digit of an area codes must be either a zero or "1"
    • the central office code must be formatted as NNX, where N = any digit from 2-9, and X = any digit.
  • According to the www.privateline.com Web site's history of the telephone system: "AT&T's William G. Blauvelt designed a dial with the letters and numbers we use today, one without a Q or Z, one without letters for the digits 1 and 0." The zero and "1" were not assigned to letters (which were used to identify the exchange, such as "BRoadway 9491."). Instead, the two numbers were reserved for network activation features (Operator, long-distance, etc.)
    
    

  There has been speculation that 9-1-1 was selected because of it ease of dialing older-style rotary phones. However, from the above, it appears there's a more logical explanation: that 9-1-1 was selected because it fell in line with AT&T's selection of 411 and 611 two or three years earlier. In turn, it appears those numbers were selected for their brevity (3 digits), and because they could be detected as special numbers by the local central office. That is, the switching equipment used the second dialed number to detect if the call was a local or long-distance number (this was long before callers were required to dial "1" before a long-distance number). If the second digits was a "1" or zero, it was long-distance. If it was any other number, it was a local call. In this case, "9-1-1" would have been filtered out at the central office by its second digit being a "1," and routed to a special destination. [The Numbering Plan was changed in 1995 to allow any digit in both the area or central office codes, in order to accommodate the increased need for phone numbers.]
  

  
  

  On the other hand--In numerology the number "9" is considered "completion and the end of things," and the number 11 is "events on the physical plane." One might speculate that putting the two numbers together to form 9-11 is appropriate, since often handling a 911 call is the end of something.
  

  
  

  Lastly, the digit "9" was probably selected for emergencies (instead of 511, 711, etc.) because of Britain's long-time use of 999 as an emergency number.
  
  

• Many Web and newspaper accounts attribute the development and installation of the Haleyville 911 system to the then-local telephone system manager, Bill Frey (sometimes misspelled as "Frye"). In fact, at least two newspaper accounts named him as the "Father of 911." The Sept. 2001 issue of American Profile magazine included statements from Frey that clearly gives credit to others, but which seems to also accept credit for much of the work on Haleyville's 911 system. However, according to a letter Frey wrote to Robert Fitzgerald's widow in 2001, Frey does not want credit for 911's debut. Here is a copy of the letter he wrote to Mrs. Fitzgerald:

A 2003 e-mail from a DISPATCH Monthly subscriber pointed us to several Web pages that claim, "The 911 emergency system, now used nation-wide, originated in Nebraska and was first established in Lincoln." We've attempted to track down the claim, which seems to originate from the Nebraska Secretary of State's Web page (scroll down through the list of "Nebraska's Significance In History And Modern Times"). That same claim is repeated word-for-word by several other Web sites. We asked Julie Righter, director of Lincoln's comm center, about the claim, but she was unable to find anyone who could substantiate it, or who recalls that era (late 1960s). She surmised that the claim originated from a book on emergency medicine, but could not point us to a definitive source.


A Web site claims that a Pennsylvania comm center was, "a model for the 911 system throughout the country." The center, called "Rainbow Control," was a consolidated comm center that handled dispatch operations for 17 communities in Pennsylvania from 1962 to 1989. The Web site says the center was designed by Dr. Joseph O'Brien, and was considered the "grandfather of all emergency dispatching systems" across the country." The site also notes, "This system dispatched fire, police and ambulance and was also used as a model for the 911 system throughout the country." However, the reference to "911" appears to refer to "dispatching," and not the three-digit emergency number telephone system. We have not been able to locate any other references to Rainbow Control in connection with the 911 number.


A person e-mailed us suggesting that the 911 telephone number was selected because it matched the address of the very deadly Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, during which 146 women died when flames swept through the 8th floor of that building. However, we determined that the building's address was actually "23-29 Washington Place," and so apparently had no connection to 911. Interestingly, however, the fire occurred in 1911. Get it? We've not heard of this possible connection before and, given the intervening years (57 years), we doubt AT&T's engineers were thinking of this event when deciding on an emergency number.


We received two e-mail messages from "John," who said he was a staffer for Sen. Ernest Gruening (Alaska) during the period 1967-68, and who provided some background on the development of 911.


We received an e-mail in July 2004 asking if the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese sparked the implementation of 911--there have been some Web sites that make the claim. Geneovese was repeatedly stabbed in Queens (NY), even though at least 38 persons heard or saw what was occurring. The incident outraged the public, and led to some changes in how NYPD operated. But there is no mention of the Genovese murder in the documents on the development of 911 or the President's Commission on Crime. There is also no documented connection between the murder and the need for a 3-digit number. Instead, the incident highlighted the need for a central comm center, instead of citizens calling the nearest precinct and talking to the desk sergeant. Our conclusion--no direct connection between the murder and the eventual implementation of 911.

[back to main 911 History page]