Fire Boxes of Oakland

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This was the first mention of Fireboxes in Oakland. The boxes were originally purchased from California Electric in San Francisco.

The first Gamewell boxes were purchased in 1891. The original boxes had no key guards and the key was only available from local businesses 

In 1899 the City Council ordered the Tooker style box for the Downtown area. this allowed for keyless access to turn in an alarm

After the 1906 Earthquake, Oakland started casting its own Fire and Police Boxes, with Keyguards.

In late 1922, Gamewell sold retrofit quick action doors for the Oakland boxes. The New cast Iron Oakland Electrical box were Installed with these doors but were modified by Oakland , which ground off the words Gamewell New York

After a legal battle with Gamewell about grinding off their name, new retrofit doors from Newton Mass. were purchased. while Gamewell won the original battle decided to replace all Gamewell boxes, Firehouse and Central office equipment and begin manufacturing their own

Oakland made an effort to only change Gamewell for Gamewell after 1924 and even replaced the Tooker boxes with the Gamewell retrofits

1931 Started the mass change to the Aluminum boxes and replacement of damaged doors with the new doors

The 1931 Boxes were completely Oakland including the internal box and movement  the only thing not made by Oakland was the lock and decals. no gamewell parts were contained in these boxes

With the expansion of the Oakland Airport, the airport firebox doors were installed and rang into Airport operations

Early Auxillary boxes were used in Oakland for years and were normally purchased from California Electric in SF. These units later became incompatable with modern fire protection equipment in City and school buildings and were later replaced with Gamewell

Oakland started to purchase Gamewell Auxiliary Boxes in the late 50's  The purchases change a practice started in 1922 to purchase anything but Gamewell. Boxes that had Red Porcelain  signified it replaced a street box, standard aluminum plates were normally installed.