Posts Tagged American Fire Engine Company.

Evanston Fire Department History – Part 15

Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department

THE METROPOLITAN

In March 1906, the Evanston Fire Department took delivery of a new American LaFrance “Metropolitan” 700-GPM second-size steam fire engine with a three-horse hitch. It was the first apparatus acquired by the EFD that required more than two horses to pull it, and it cost $5,500, plus $250 for a new horse that was added to the two already assigned to Engine 1. The new Metropolitan steamer was heavier and more-powerful than the Ahrens Metropolitan 600-GPM second-size steamer with a two-horse hitch that had been in service with the EFD since 1895. 

The plan was for the older Ahrens Metropolitan steamer to be sent to the American LaFrance factory in Elmira, NY, for a complete overhaul, after-which it would be returned to Evanston and placed into service at Station # 2. However, the Evanston City Council declined to appropriate funds to purchase two additional horses and hire additional manpower that would be needed in order to place the second steamer into front-line service, so while the older steamer was indeed moved into Station # 2 after it came back from Elmira, it was kept in reserve status for several years until such time as more horses could be purchased and additional manpower could be hired. 

The Metropolitan was the most-popular steam fire engine of the day, and while Evanston’s new Metropolitan steamer was built by American-LaFrance, the EFD’s older Metropolitan steamer was built by the Ahrens Manufacturing Company of Cincinnati, OH. The Metropolitan was invented in the 1890’s by Chris Ahrens, founder of the Ahrens Manufacturing Company, and along with Button, Clapp & Jones, and Silsby, Ahrens was one of four steam fire engine companies that merged to form the American Fire Engine Company (AFEC) in 1891. This was the era of monopolies and trusts, and the purpose of establishing AFEC was to reduce or maybe even eventually eliminate competition, consolidate the sales force, and maximize profits. Although each of the four companies maintained their own separate corporate identity, AFEC production facilities were located at the Ahrens Manufacturing Company plant in Cincinnati and at the Silsby Manufacturing Company plant in Seneca Falls, NY. However, because the other two major steam fire engine manufacturers of the day — Amoskeag and LaFrance  — did not participate in the merger, the overall benefit of the AFEC consolidation was minimal.

While there were four steam fire engine manufactures under the AFEC umbrella, Ahrens was by far the biggest and most-successful. Ahrens built its Metropolitan steamer in various sizes, and it was sold to fire departments — including the Evanston F. D. — across the country throughout the 1890s. Ahrens also manufactured the radical / eccentric, overly-heavy, and not very successful “Columbian,” which was built for and displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Jackson Park in Chicago in 1893. The Columbian featured both a standard steam engine AND a hose supply-bed on the same rig. The common practice at the time the Columbian was being introduced and marketed was for an engine company to operate with a steam fire engine and a hose cart running as separate rigs, and unfortunately for Ahrens, most fire chiefs at that time just could not see the advantage of combining the two functions in one apparatus.

While the American Fire Engine Company was attempting to establish itself as the “big dog” in the world of steam fire engines, the LaFrance Fire Engine Company was busy acquiring patents for both the Hayes and the Babcock aerial-ladders, the two most popular aerial-ladder designs of the 19th century, effectively giving LaFrance control over the manufacture of all aerial-ladder trucks built in the U. S.  It was not until 1900 — when the American Fire Engine Company merged with LaFrance, Amoskeag, and a number of other manufacturers of firefighting equipment and apparatus such as the Rumsey Company, Gleason & Bailey, the Charles T. Holloway Company, and the Macomber Fire Extinguisher Company to form the International Fire Engine Company, that the trust was fully established.

The International Fire Engine Company name was changed to American-LaFrance Fire Engine Company as all production moved to the LaFrance plant in Elmira, NY, in 1904, but just as with AFEC ten years earlier, post-merger profits were not as great as had been anticipated, in part thanks to a new kid on the block.

The Seagrave Corporation was located in Columbus, OH, and while Seagrave did not build steam fire engines, it did manufacture first-rate horse-drawn chemical engines and hook & ladder trucks, as well as the very popular “combination truck,” so-called because it combined a chemical engine and a hook & ladder truck in one apparatus. Seagrave combination trucks were in service with fire departments across the U. S., and then beginning in 1900, Seagrave started manufacturing horse-dawn aerial-ladder trucks that competed successfully with the American-LaFrance aerial-ladder truck.

Meanwhile, tired of living the life of a retired independently wealthy squire, Chris Ahrens rediscovered his latent entrepreneurial spirit and sold his share in American-LaFrance in 1904. Together with sons John and Fred and son-in-law and Cincinnati Fire Chief Charles H. Fox, formed a new company called the Ahrens Fire Engine Company at the old Ahrens Manufacturing Company plant in Cincinnati. The company’s name was changed to the Ahrens-Fox Fire Engine Company in 1908 when Charles Fox became company president, and it quickly became the # 2 steam fire engine manufacturer and American-LaFrance’s chief competitor in the area of steam fire engines. But it wasn’t easy.

Because American-LaFrance retained all patents held by the various companies that formed ALF — including the Metropolitan patent originally filed by Chris Ahrens in the 1890s  — Ahrens-Fox could not build the Metropolitan. And so instead, Chris Ahrens invented, developed, and built a completely new steam fire engine called the “Continental” that did not infringe on any existing patents, and in fact the Ahrens-Fox Continental sold very well, and might even have eventually matched or even exceeded American-LaFrance’s Metropolitan in sales, except the steam fire engine era came to a rather abrupt end in 1915.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Evanston Fire Department history

From Phil Stenholm:

120 years ago today…

“Lincoln Avenue” is what Main Street was called at the time Evanston annexed South Evanston in 1892. By 1894, the street name still hadn’t been changed. The Lincoln Avenue schoolhouse was the only school in South Evanston at the time. It was located at the southeast corner of Lincoln & Benson (Main & Elmwood), the future site of Central School, and consisted of the original school building (a three-story brick structure–two floors plus attic, with a full basement), and an attached annex (wood-frame & brick) that was built in 1890. This incident occurred on the first day of Spring (Wednesday, March 21, 1894) at 10:20 AM.

“SOBS AND MOANS FILLED THE AIR AS THE FLOOR WHERE THE CHILD WAS LAST SEEN BROKE AND CRASHED DOWNWARD. BUT THEY WERE SUDDENLY CHANGED TO SHOUTS OF JOY AS BRAVE SAM HARRISON AND GEORGE HARGREAVES CAME INTO VIEW BEARING THE LIMP FORM OF THE CHILD FOR WHOM THEY HAD RISKED THEIR LIVES. THEIR FACES WERE BLACKENED AND THE BLOOD WAS RUNNING FROM A PAINFUL WOUND IN HARRISON’S HAND.

THEY FOUND THE CHILD IN ONE OF THE AISLES, LYING FACE DOWNWARD. THE SMOKE WAS SO THICK THAT IT WAS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THEY RETAINED STRENGTH TO REACH THE DOORWAY LEADING TO THE STAIRS. ONCE HARRISON FELL, BUT FORTUNATELY RETAINED HIS SENSES. IT WAS THEN THAT HE INJURED HIS HAND.

JUST AS THEY REACHED THE HALL OF THE REAR ANNEX, THE FLOOR AREA OVER WHICH THEY HAD GROPED WENT DOWN. HAD THEY BEEN A MOMENT LATER, BOTH RESCUERS AND JENNIE JOHNSON MUST HAVE PERISHED.”

– Chicago Herald, March 22, 1894. ____________________________________________________________________

Fire destroyed the school, but all of the children were rescued, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Evanston fire fighters (Sam Harrison and George Hargreaves in particular) and an expressman named Sam Mack. Mack was passing by the school en route to the Lincoln Avenue C&NW RR depot when he noticed smoke pouring from the school’s windows, and children crawling out onto a second floor ledge. Mack calmly directed the children to jump into his arms to escape the flames, repeating the drill until the arrival of the Evanston Fire Department. Chicago F. D. Engine Co. 70 assisted Evanston fire fighters in quelling the blaze. (The EFD would return the favor the following August, responding to a request from the citizens of Rogers Park to help fight a large fire involving several buildings at Clark & Greenleaf… The City of Chicago had recently annexed Rogers Park, but had not yet extended its water-mains to the neighborhood).

The Lincoln Avenue schoolhouse fire would stand for more than ten years as the single worst fire in Evanston’s history, until the Mark Manufacturing Company fire of December 1905. In the aftermath of the Lincoln Avenue schoolhouse fire, the EFD was given virtual carte blanche to improve its operations. Chief Harrison successfully lobbied for acquisition of a “fire alarm telegraph” (with placement of fire alarm boxes on street corners) to provide citizens with the means to report a fire quickly. (In the case of the Lincoln Avenue schoolhouse fire, a citizen ran three blocks to report the fire in person at Fire Station # 2).

At a cost of $4,000, a “Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph” (initially with 20 fire alarm boxes) was installed in Evanston over a period of three months between November 1894 and February 1895. By 1905, 37 boxes were in service, and by 1935 there were 51 boxes in service. The fire alarm boxes and telegraph system were replaced by a network of 80 police/fire “emergency telephones” (manufactured by Western Electric) in 1958.

LOCATIONS OF THE 20 FIRE ALARM BOXES PLACED IN SERVICE FEBRUARY 15, 1895:

12 Church & Benson
14 Chicago & University
15 Maple & Foster
16 Foster & West Railroad (later known as “Green Bay Road”)
18 Ridge & Noyes
21 Emerson & Ashland
23 Dewey & Noyes (intersection obliterated by canal construction in 1908)
25 Dewey (later known as “Eastwood”) & Central
27 Livingston & Grosse Point Avenue (later known as “Prairie Avenue”)
28 Harrison & McDaniel
31 Maple & Lake
32 Wesley & Grove
34 Asbury & Crain
35 Washington & Asbury
37 Oakton & Custer
41 Hinman & Davis
42 Chicago & Dempster
46 Forest & Lee
47 Judson & Keeney
48 Forest & Greenwood

In addition to providing to the public the means to report a fire, the fire alarm telegraph also had another function. Members of the Fire Department (normally a company officer or the chief’s “buggy driver”) could communicate updates and “progress reports” from the scene of an incident to the chief’s residence, the city’s fire stations, and/or the police switchboard. Messages could be sent (via telegraph) both ways, so that a fire fighter monitoring a particular alarm box could be advised of another alarm elsewhere in the city or other important information.

Shortly after the Fire Alarm Telegraph was placed in service, the Evanston City Council purchased an Ahrens 2nd-size 600 GPM steamer with a two-horse hitch from the American Fire Engine Company. The rig was christened “City of Evanston No. 1” and was placed into service at Station # 1 in April 1895, just two months after installation of the fire alarm telegraph was completed. A second steamer (a 700 GPM 2nd size “Metropolitan” steamer with a three-horse hitch built by American-LaFrance) was placed into service in 1906.

Former Waterworks engineer J. A “Dad” Patrick was hired as the Fire Department’s “Engineer” in 1895, and Edward Mersch was hired as the “Assistant Engineer” in 1896. (Mersch would later serve as Chief 1901-1905). A knowledgeable engineer was worth his weight in gold in the “steam era.” The position of “Engineer” was the second highest-paid member of the EFD (second only to the Chief) in the years prior to World War I. In fact, as late as 1904, the salary of Engine Co. 1’s assistant engineer was as much as the salary of its company officer!

“Civil Service” was mandated & established for City of Evanston employees in 1895. Only five members of the ten members of the EFD (Jack Sweeting, George Hargreaves, Carl Harms, Edwin Whitcomb, and J. A. Patrick) qualified under Civil Service. (The position of Chief was exempt from Civil Service). Just like being on active duty in the military, all firemen were on duty at all times, although each man was permitted to take meal breaks away from the firehouse each day, and an occasional furlough at home.

A Fire & Police headquarters was constructed at the northwest corner of Grove & Sherman in 1897. Fire Station # 1 (at 807 Grove Street) featured four large bays for apparatus, with an adjacent fifth bay used as a garage for the police ambulance. The facility was abandoned in the summer of 1949, and the structure was razed. The land was used for more than 25 years as a parking lot for the Valencia Theatre, before one of one of Evanston’s first high-rise office buildings (originally known as “One American Plaza”) was built on the lot in the 1970’s (with construction of the 18-story structure beginning in December 1975, before being completed in 1977).

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,