What sorts of historical connections does your Department have?

The Photo is of a postcard circa about 1910, of Bridgeport Connecticut Engine 3 and Ladder 1 and the hose wagon as well. The Firehouse was Built around the early 1880's and supposedly was in part financed by P.T. Barnum to help protect his Circus's Winter Quarters as well as the overall neighborhood which was mainly circus employees of all kinds, the Ladder was assigned here in 1890, the Plot was located on the northeastern corner of the circus grounds at Norman & Hanover St's. The building still stands today, although renovations to the roof, doors were made with Motorization. the bell tower is long dismantled but the base pad is still there, The circus ground is a public park and the Parks department uses the firehouse for storage, sadly..To the right behind the hose wagon the sawtooth stepped roof area was the Blacksmith shop, the Tillerman was also the farrier and smith... In the late 40's the Chief renumbered the trucks to coencide with the engine they were housed Ladder 1 became 3. The house was "consolidated" in 1983 when Engine 3, 4 and Ladder 3 moved to the new house 4 blocks north and one block south of Engine 4's house.
which is now privately owned... sadly in 1995, Ladder 3 was closed after serving the people of the west side of the city after 104 and 1/2 years...

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Permalink Reply by NYBrian on December 14, 2008 at 1:41pm
Well, historically speaking, my department in Elmira, NY has been a full career department since 1873. Elmira, of course, was home to American LaFrance fire trucks and was the exclusive supplier of our apparatus until they left town in the 80s. We still only used ALF until 1994 and we still have two Century Series rigs in reserve. In the pictures below you will find we had a mild case of "lime" disease in the 60s and 70s and a nice pic of an old steamer at a huge winter time fire...
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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on January 2, 2009 at 3:51pm
The Bernville Fire Company back in the day was also the home of the community theater. We still have a few artifacts from this time gone by. On the rear wall of our engine room hangs the curtain to the stage of the theater. Our engine room is now were the theater was. Every few years we lower the curtain so it can be viewed during our annual Pork and sauerkraut dinner on Jan 1st. It creates a lot off discussions from the older people who remember it, and they stand in front of it and reminisce with others of the times they had spent at the theater. There are also many questions asked by newcomers to the area and or younger people who have never seen it before.
No body is sure if this is the original curtain dating back to the early 1920's or not. I am trying to gather more info on it.
Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on January 2, 2009 at 3:55pm

Here is a picture of it while it was on diplay during dinner Jan 1st 2009.
Permalink Reply by SMOKEnPipesJim on January 3, 2009 at 6:24pm
Onething that "may or may not help" ,is to go to yor library or historical society and research someof the Buisness names , like the Nash/Ford dealership see how long its been or was in buisness, or carbon dating..lol the panel truck seems to me, of a 30's or even 40's version but that isjust an oppinion not
based on my experiance I hope the curtain is fire resistive
Permalink Reply by Scott on March 3, 2009 at 11:47am
Well the history of my current dept North Shore Fire Department (Milwaukee Co WI) is quite easy. We started in 1995 and I am a charter member. We were 7 separate department before that some were volunteer and some were full time and 2 were Public Safety (Fire/EMS & Police at the same time)
Some of the 7 went back to the late 1800's and some as recent as the 1950's. We have made sure to keep a lot of stuff since 1995 to keep our history for coming generations of FF's but it is hard to find a lot about the predecessor Dept's. Some when we combined gave everything to the FF's on the job at the time and a lot of those guys have drifted away or don't let on they have it for some reason. There were some hard feelings when we combined, not everyone was offered a position in the new dept. Ain't politics great!
I'll have to upload some photos we have and post them. in the interim we have some current stuff on www.nsfire.org and working on www. local1440.org
Permalink Reply by Alan Shaw on December 3, 2009 at 3:39pm
Our department is called Belltown, because that is the name of the neighborhood that we protect. Many think this has something to do with fire bells, but they would be wrong. We do have a bell in the front yard, that is the "official" Belltown bell, but it is from the old neighborhood schoolhouse (Belltown School) and was given to us when the schoolhouse was renovated into a senior residence, now called Belltown Manor.

The name of the neighborhood actually comes from one of the original property owning families, the Bell family. THere are still two abandoned cemeteries in our district that have very old Bell family gravestones. I usually make our probies walk to the one near our station and look at the graves as part of their probie training.

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