Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
For Elgin Fire Assistant Fire Chief Robb Cagann, Saturday was a special way to celebrate the Elgin Fire Department’s 150th Anniversary.
The Fire Barn No. 5 Museum’s open house Saturday showcased the department’s history as part of the celebration of the day it began exactly 150 years earlier.
Cagann credited the museum board with building the collection housed in the early 1900s fire barn. The volunteer museum board takes care of the fire engines and all the memorabilia, he said.
Elgin Fire Department was established on September 16, 1867, and the all-volunteer force worked out of a building at 9 N. Spring St., according to a brochure the department created. The city’s first company, the Elgin Hook and Ladder Company, had a hose wagon and two horses to serve 5,441 residents, it stated.
Fire Station No. 5 was built in 1903 to 1904 at 533 St. Charles Street. By 1904, the fire department had 5 fully staffed fire barns with three hose wagons, two combination hose/chemical engines and horse-drawn engines, according to the museum. It was decommissioned in 1991, later becoming a fire museum, officials said. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, the brochure states.
