Fire company celebrating history
BROWNSVILLE – One hundred years of Brownsville firefighting history is being celebrated by the Brownsville No. 1 Fire Company (North Side) with a four-day open house. The volunteer fire department is taking advantage of the fact that someone will be at the station today through Wednesday from noon until 9 p.m. selling Kennywood tickets to turn its social hall into a miniature museum.
Fire Capt. Tom Wardman has been working on the display, preparing panels highlighting 10-year spans of the department’s history. Each panel includes photos, news clippings and items such as replicas of the receipt for the department’s first fire truck and ration stamps from World War II.
“The fire department had a ‘T’ stamp. Even the fire departments were rationed,” Wardman said.
“T” stamps were for trucks. All unused stamps were to be turned in after their expiration date, but the stamps the fire company has expired a month after the end of the war.
Wardman’s history of the fire department actually goes back a bit before 1910.
“Brownsville was founded in 1776. Between 1776 and 1827 I have no history of firefighting here. In 1827 the borough of Brownsville established a fire department. A pike pole, a chain and a bucket, that was their equipment,” Wardman said.
The Brownsville No. 1 Fire Department purchased its first fire engine for $296. It was completely human powered, with eight men carrying it to the fire scene and pumping it by hand. The Rotary Patent Engine could pump two to three barrels of water a minute, throwing it 60 feet high for a distance of 90 feet, according to the advertisement for the equipment.
“The truck today pumps 12,500 gallons a minute. You’re talking about $250,000 for a new truck. Ours cost less because it was a demo,” Wardman said.
Between the Rotary Patent Engine and the department’s first motorized fire truck, the department used a horse-drawn truck. Wardman said that at one point the department sold its horse, an animal named “Billy” to state Rep. Duncan Sinclair. According to one account, Sinclair loaned the horse to a man who loosely tied the animal to a post only to have Billy take off running to the fire station when the fire alarm was sounded. The wagon Billy was hauling was destroyed and, the story goes, Sinclair never loaned him out again.
The display is filled with tidbits of history like that. In 1919 the department purchased its first motorized pumper truck at the princely sum of $12,050. Around that same time period the department also had a bear as a mascot. It reportedly enjoyed wrestling and drinking beer.
The current fire hall is the third location for the department.
The original fire station was a two-story building erected in 1914 for $4,890. The building was taken for the construction of the Lane Bane Bridge in 1960 and the department moved to the fire hall between Church and Spring streets that now houses the Monongahela River Rail and Transportation Museum. The department outgrew that station and moved to its present location in 1976.
“I found most of these in boxes upstairs,” Wardman said of the collection of photos, receipts and news clippings. “I collect fire stuff.”
Wardman said he has been the department’s historian since he joined 40 years ago. He said many of those who shared the early history of the department with him have since passed away.
Wardman noted that not all of the department’s history is in photos or books or receipts. Some is held in the equipment still in use by the department today, including specialty nozzles either purchased or made by the firefighters more than 50 years ago.
Even the department’s newest truck holds onto tradition, featuring bells on the front of the truck like old fire engines had before sirens were used. Today the bells are used during funerals and to mark the end of a fire.
“It’s a tradition we try to adhere to,” Wardman said.