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Holy Searchlight Batman, Where Are You? In Gotham City, the appearance of a search light with the famous bat silhouette was the signal that the citizens needed help fighting some villain. The stuff of comic books and movies, right? Well, almost. Driving past the Historical Society Museum located in the old 1st National Bank building at Lincoln and State, you may have noticed what looks like a flagpole on the northeast corner of the roof. There used to be a light on top of the pole which at one time served the same purpose as fictional Gotham City’s searchlight. According to former O’Fallon Police Chief James W. Tiley who was interviewed by the Progress on the occasion of his retirement in 1973, those who needed the police in the days before O’Fallon had a dispatching system had to call the local telephone operator stationed on the 2nd floor of the bank building. When she received a call for the police, she flipped a switch which turned on the roof—top light. When Tiley saw the light, he knew he was needed and could call the operator for the necessary information and directions. Jim Tiley was one of two “city marshals” (Ted Darner was the other) hired in Sept. 1953 at a starting monthly salary of $273 after the resignation of Chief Nick Hemmer. Promoted to Chief in 1954, Tiley oversaw a department with just one patrolman--Eugene Ferguson. When the light signaling was abandoned, emergency calls were often made to Tiley’s home. His wife would send “the two kids off in two different directions until they found him.” A plan was soon worked out with the Belleville Police to have emergency calls taken by Belleville and radioed to O’Fallon.
We’ve come a long way since then. The old bank light pole still remains, however, as a reminder of O’Fallon’s early light dispatching system.
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