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The top arm mounted on a poletop extension was for fire alarm circuits. It was standard practice through the early 1910's to string these wires above everything else along pole lines. The call box wires were considered highly vital to a community's instant fire reporting and safekeeping. Placing them below would have made them susceptible to breaks, short circuits, etc., from other utilities' fallen wires that often were strung all over the place in the early days.