Posts Tagged American-LaFrance Metropolitan steamer

Evanston Fire Department history Part 26

From Phil Stenholm:

Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department

THE SEAGRAVE CONNECTION 

The Evanston Fire Department was fully motorized after voters approved a $30,000 bond issue in April 1917 that led to the purchase of five pieces of automobile firefighting apparatus. One Model “E” city service ladder truck — equipped with a rather unwieldy 55-foot ground-based extension-ladder instead of an aerial-ladder, one 750-GPM triple-combination pumper, two chemical & hose 300-GPM booster-pumpers, and one Model “K” front-drive, one-axle truck tractor which motorized the previously horse-drawn American LaFrance Metropolitan steamer, were purchased from the Seagrave Company at a cost of $28,800, and were placed into service over a four-month period November 1917 – March 1918.  

The first Seagrave rig to arrive was, as promised, the city service truck, which almost immediately replaced the ex-Chattanooga F. D. LaFrance / Hayes 55-foot HDA that Evanston was leasing from American LaFrance. Seagrave company rep Michael Shafer rode along as the city service truck was shipped by rail from Columbus, Ohio to Evanston during the last week of November, and then Shafer remained in Evanston for the next two months providing driver training, teaching pump operations, and being available in case any of the new rigs might encounter mechanical issues while being placed into service.

The city service truck’s first major fire was one of the ten worst fires in Evanston’s history up until that point in time It was a $30,000 blaze in the early-morning hours of December 30, 1917, at the Evanston Strand Theater at 1560 Sherman Avenue. Two men were seen running from the movie palace a short time prior to the fire being discovered, but arson could not be proven because of the extensive fire & smoke damage.  It was the second fire at the Strand in two years. The first occurred on February 13, 1916, and it was clearly accidental, sparked by an electrical short in the orchestra pit, and the EFD was able to knock it down quickly with chemicals. There was minimal damage. Located next-door to the Evanston Police station and around the corner from Fire Station # 1, the Evanston Strand Theater would later be rebuilt as the Valencia Theater, one of three splendid Balaban & Katz movie theaters that operated in Evanston for many years. The others were the Varsity and the Coronet.     

The next of the new Seagrave apparatus to arrive were the three pumpers. A 750-GPM triple-combination pumper and two chemical & hose 300-GPM booster pumpers, but not before they were misplaced somewhere on a railroad siding in Chicago for several days in January during the Great Blizzard of ’18. Once they were located and sent onward to Evanston, the rigs had their pumps tested at Becker’s Pond – now known as Boltwood Park – under the supervision of Seagrave’s Michael Shafer and EFD Chief Albert Hofstetter. All three easily passed their pump tests, with the pumps on the two 300-GPM booster-pumpers actually rated at 325 GPM. The three rigs were quickly placed into service. The 750-GPM pumper replaced the Robinson Jumbo as Engine No. 1 at Station # 1, one of the two chemical & hose booster-pumpers replaced the 1902 Seagrave combination truck / hose-tender as Truck No. 2 at Station # 2, and the other chemical & hose booster-pumper replaced the 1885 Davenport H&L / hose tender as Truck No. 3 at Station # 3.     

With the exception of the 1906 American LaFrance Metropolitan 700-GPM steamer and its three horses, all remaining horse-drawn apparatus were scrapped and the horses either retired, sold, or transferred to the street department as the new Seagrave automobile pumpers were placed into service in January 1918. On February 21, 1918, the EFD’s last three horses were retired and the horse-drawn American LaFrance Metropolitan steamer was sent to the Seagrave factory to be ‘tractorized‘, with a front-drive, one-axle Model “K” tractor permanently connected to the steamer. The tractorized-steamer was returned to the EFD in March and placed back into service as Engine No. 2 at Station # 2.       

Initially, the plan was to overhaul the Robinson Jumbo after the arrival of the Seagrave apparatus. Then it would be kept it in front-line service as Engine No. 3 at Fire Station # 3 with one of the new Seagrave chemical & hose 300-GPM booster pumpers running as the second piece of the company, a rig known in the horse-drawn era prior to 1918 as Truck No. 3. However, due to its history of mechanical problems, the difficulty in locating spare parts, and excessive vibration when operating at full-throttle, Chief Hofstetter decided to remove the Jumbo from front-line duty after only six years of service. It was placed into reserve at Station # 1 as the EFD’s lone reserve automobile apparatus to be known henceforth as Engine No. 4. As a result, the new Seagrave chemical & hose 300-GPM booster pumper that had been assigned to Station # 3 ostensibly as the company’s chemical engine & hose-truck instead became Engine No. 3, and ran as North Evanston’s first-due pumper for the next twenty years!   

The Robinson Jumbo was the EFD’s only spare automobile apparatus until August 1929, when it’s pump and chemical tank were disconnected and it was transferred to the street department for use as a utility truck. The street department was still using mostly horse-drawn wagons in the 1920s, so any kind of automobile – even an old fire engine — was a welcome addition to the fleet.

Meanwhile, the tractor-drawn steamer was retired from front-line service and placed into reserve in 1930 after the EFD sent the steamer’s 1917 Seagrave chemical & hose 300-GPM booster pumper back to the Seagrave factory in Ohio to be rebuilt as a 500-GPM triple-combination pumper with a 50-gallon (water) booster tank. The tractor-drawn steamer would remain the EFD’s lone reserve apparatus until 1938, although the Robinson Jumbo was available to be temporarily returned to the EFD from the street department to run as the tractor-drawn steamer’s hose truck anytime the reserve steamer was placed into front-line service.

Evanston’s firefighting force was increased to 41 in 1918, with three, nine-man engine companies and one, 13-man truck company in service. Because Evanston firefighters were working a schedule of 24 hours on / 12 hours off, 2/3 of the manpower was on duty at any one time, so effectively the three engine companies were staffed with six men, and the truck company was staffed with eight or nine, with one man from Truck Co. 1 detailed as the chief’s buggy-driver.

Assistant Chief Thomas Norman retired after 22 years of service with the EFD in 1918, and Capt. Ed Johnson was promoted to assistant chief, Lt. Tom McEnery wqs promoted to captain, and firemen Harry Schaeffer and Ed McEnery (Tom’s brother) were promoted to lieutenant. In addition, Earnest Erickson – the Robinson company engineer who was hired as a temporary civilian motor driver in 1911 and then ended up spending the next six years of his life driving, operating the pump, and repairing (mostly repairing) the Jumbo — was summarily dismissed from the EFD after Engine Co. 1 Assistant Motor Driver Arthur McNeil (finally!) passed the civil service exam for motor driver.

Frank Altenberg – who had been hired as an engineer and assigned to the steamer at Station # 2 in 1916 after William Sampson retired with a disability pension — also was able to qualify as a motor driver and was assigned to Fire Station # 3. Because no Evanston firemen were able to pass the civil service exam for assistant motor driver, Fireman John Monks was appointed temporary assistant motor driver and moved back & forth between Station # 1 and Station # 3 as the relief driver for McNeil and Altenberg.

Unlike Frank Altenberg, none of the other three EFD steamer engineers – J. A. “Dad” Patrick, Max Kraatz, and William Richards – were able to qualify as motor drivers, so all three were assigned to Fire Station # 2,  with Patrick the engineer, and Kraatz and Richards the assistant engineers. Besides operating the American LaFrance Metropolitan tractor-drawn steamer (Engine No. 2), the trio were also responsible for maintaining the 1895 Ahrens Metropolitan steamer that was moved to from Station # 3 to Station # 2 and placed into reserve as Engine No. 5.   

Motor Engine Co. 1 was reorganized at this time, with Truck Co. 1 under the command of Assistant Chief Ed Johnson and Engine Co. 1 under the command of Captain Tom McEnery once again operating as separate companies at Station #1 as had been the case prior to 1912. Engine Co. 2 under the command of Capt. Carl Harms remained in service at Station #2, and Engine Co. 3 under the command of Capt. George Hargreaves remained in service at Station #3. The assistant company officers were J. E. Mersch (Engine Co. 1), Harry Schaeffer (Truck Co. 1), Ed McEnery (Engine Co. 2), and Pat Gayner (Engine Co. 3).

With automobile apparatus now in service at all three fire stations, and with two separate companies now in service at Station # 1, the EFD’s response to alarms also changed. Instead of Motor Engine Co. 1 responding to all alarms city-wide with one of the two horse-drawn engine companies, Truck Co. 1 now responded to all alarms city-wide, following the first-due engine company, either Engine Co. 1, Engine Co. 2, or Engine Co. 3. The three engine company districts were established as Greenleaf Street to Foster Street (Engine Co. 1), south of Greenleaf Street (Engine Co. 2), and north of Foster Street (Engine Co. 3).

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Evanston Fire Department History – Part 21

From Phil Stenholm:

Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department

The Changing Face of Evanston

The geographical face of Evanston changed significantly in the years 1907-12. The North Shore Channel sanitary canal was constructed during those years, and the Evanston City Council mandated elevation for most of the railroad tracks located within the Evanston city limits.

Built by the Sanitary District of Chicago, the purpose of the North Shore Channel was to connect Lake Michigan at Wilmette Harbor to the north branch of the Chicago River at approximately Foster & Sacramento. By using water-flow from Lake Michigan, sewage could be flushed south from Wilmette and Evanston to a sewage reduction plant located at Howard Street. This meant that raw sewage would no longer be dumped into Lake Michigan off-shore of Evanston and Wilmette, thus helping to prevent typhoid fever and cholera outbreaks that had plagued the two North Shore suburbs from time-to-time over the years.    

Meanwhile, the two railroads operating in Evanston at the time – the Chicago and North Western (C&NWRR) and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul (CM&StP, or simply “The Milwaukee Road”) — were required to elevate their main-line tracks and build viaducts at certain locations from Howard Street to the Wilmette border. 

The C&NWRR freight tracks – known as the Mayfair Division — did not require elevation south of Church Street, because those tracks were used to switch freight cars at manufacturing plants and warehouses located in west and southwest Evanston. Also, the Milwaukee Road tracks — which are now the CTA tracks — were only elevated as far north as Church Street at that time, after the CM&StPRR agreed not to run its trains north of downtown Evanston.    

At 1 AM on Friday, April 26, 1912, the EFD responded to a report of a structure fire at Church & Dodge, and by the time companies arrived, they found multiple residences ablaze. The fire began in an unfinished residence belonging to Renaldo Roberti at 1819 Church Street, before communicating to the William Marion residence to the east at 1817 Church St. Marion’s daughter Pearl jumped from a second floor window into the arms of neighbor Emil Pavel, who had just carried his wife and daughter to safety from their residence at 1715 Dodge Ave. Evanston firefighters saved the Pavel residence, but flames claimed the Frank Kuzik residence at 1717 Dodge Avenue, the Lewis Titus residence at 1809 Church Street, and the Ludwig Veiter residence at 1807 Church Street, in addition to the Roberti and Marion residences.

High winds hampered firefighters battling the conflagration, but they did manage to prevent the flames from extending any further north and east, and were able to extinguish the blaze without any injuries to civilians or to firemen. This was the first time all three EFD engines —the Robinson motor engine, the American-LaFrance Metropolitan steamer, and the Ahrens Metropolitan steamer – were pumping at the same fire. The total aggregate damage to the residences was $11,250.

The Ebenezer A. M. E. church was firebombed in 1903 and two houses and a barn were destroyed by a blaze in the so-called “Italian settlement” at Dewey & Payne in 1911, but the 1912 multi-structure conflagration at Church & Dodge was by far the worst fire to date in the 5th ward. The 5th ward was home mainly to immigrants and African Americans at that time, and it was the poorest and most politically isolated ward in the city, without a significant business district, with no high-value residential properties, no university, and no border with the City of Chicago to give its aldermen the power to make common cause with aldermen from the other wards.

Without the leverage of the other six wards, the 5th was pretty much on its own when fighting political battles within the city council, and so when EFD Chief Carl Harrison recommended in 1912 that a fourth fire station be built at Emerson & Ashland – the bull’s eye center of the 5th ward at that time —  there was no appetite for it in the city council, beyond that of the two 5th ward aldermen.      

About a month later, on May 29, 1912, the entire Evanston Fire Department along with Chicago F. D. engine companies 70 and 112 battled an early-morning blaze at the Bogart Building at 1306 Sherman Ave. Firefighting efforts continued until well into the afternoon, as Evanston and Chicago firemen worked to extinguish the stubborn blaze. The Workers Cooperative Grocery store and the North Shore Creamery located on the first floor as well as apartments located on the second and third floors were gutted. The $16,700 in total damage made it one of the ten worst fires in terms of property loss in Evanston’s history up until that point in time.   

During the Summer of 1913, a mechanical resuscitator known as the “Lung Motor” was placed into service at Fire Station # 1, and it was an instant success. The invention had been demonstrated at Evanston Hospital the previous October, and the Lung Motor was so successful that the Evanston Fire Department received a $25 award from the Life Saving Devices Company of Chicago as the “Top Life Savers in the Nation” at the end of 1913!

The EFD also responded to a number of mutual-aid requests for the Lung Motor received from other North Shore suburbs, and even occasionally responded with the Lung Motor to the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

While the Lung Motor was initially placed aboard the speedy Robinson auto-truck at Station # 1, inhalator runs were taking the motor engine out of service too much. So when an automobile police ambulance replaced the horse-drawn police ambulance in the bay located east of Fire Station # 1 in May 1916, a new joint police-fire policy began at that time which directed a fireman from Station # 1 to be detailed to ride with two police station officers in the police ambulance when responding to Lung Motor (inhalator) calls, thus keeping the motor engine available to respond to fires. 

The first automobile Evanston police ambulance was built by William Erby & Sons on a White Motor Company chassis, and it was in service for eleven years before being demolished in a collision with a bus in September 1927. At that point, the inhalator was moved back to EFD Engine Co. 1. Then beginning in 1952, the inhalator was placed aboard the EFD’s new rescue truck (Squad 21), and inhalators were assigned to all five engine companies beginning in 1959. 

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Evanston Fire Department History – Part 18

Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department

Although he had steadfastly maintained at the time of the fire that a second steam fire engine could not have saved the Villa Celeste, the mounting calls in the two South Evanston wards for the city to allow itself to be annexed by Chicago led EFD Chief Carl Harrison to go before the city council in April 1909 and request that the aldermen immediately appropriate the funds needed to place the reserve steamer into front-line service at Station # 2. 

The city council refused Chief Harrison’s request because the law-makers claimed there was not sufficient money available in the 1909 budget to do it, but the city council’s fire committee did (somewhat surprisingly) express an interest in purchasing a gasoline-powered motor-driven auto-truck fire engine, at a point in time when automobile fire-fighting apparatus was in its infancy.

The fire committee’s master plan was to purchase an automobile fire engine and place it into service with Engine Co. 1 at Station # 1, move the American LaFrance Metropolitan steamer (the existing Engine 1) from Station # 1 to Station # 3 where it would run with the Davenport H&L / hose tender as a two-piece engine company, transfer the two horses used to pull Engine Co. 1’s hose wagon to the older reserve steamer at Station # 2 since with an automobile pumper in service, the horse-drawn hose wagon at Station # 1 would no longer be needed, and place the older steamer into front-line service, where it would run with the Seagrave combination truck as a two-piece engine company. This arrangement would also mean that with an automobile pumper or a steam fire engine in service at all three fire stations, water pressure in the mains would no longer have to be increased to fight a fire except in extraordinary circumstances, thus saving Evanston’s water mains from further damage and likely eventual collapse.

Chief Harrison and the fire committee traveled to Michigan in February 1910 to examine a motor-driven fire engine – a Webb / Oldsmobile combination pumper, so-called because it combined a pump and hose on the same rig —  that had been in service in Lansing for 14 months. Harrison and the committee were apparently impressed by what they saw, because when they returned to Evanston, the members of the fire committee convinced their fellow aldermen to place a $10,000 bond issue on the ballot in the city election of April 1910, asking voters to decide whether or not Evanston should purchase an auto-truck fire engine.

It wasn’t clear if Evanston voters would support the measure, so the local newspapers expended quite a bit of newsprint in the days leading up to the election explaining to voters that acquisition of an auto-truck fire engine for Fire Station # 1 would actually improve fire protection at all three fire stations – meaning the entire city – because placing an auto-truck fire engine in service at Station # 1 would allow steam fire engines to be placed into service at both Station # 2 in South Evanston and Station # 3 in North Evanston.   

It also probably didn’t hurt that on the eve of the election, a large fire destroyed the Original Manufacturing Company plant at 721 Custer Avenue, as well as a residence to the south at 719 Custer and another across the street at 724 Custer. The EFD did otherwise save the neighborhood and were hailed as heroes by the four South Evanston aldermen for doing so, but the $35,000 aggregate damage estimate from the conflagration was one of the highest losses from a fire in Evanston’s history up to that point in time. Whether the timing of the blaze made a difference in the outcome of the election cannot be known for sure, but the bond issue did pass, albeit by a slim margin.    

Talk of annexation died as fire protection in South Evanston was upgraded in 1911. Although the bond issue had passed in April 1910, Chief Harrison and the three members of the city council’s fire committee were not yet satisfied that any automobile fire engine manufacturer could build what Evanston wanted, that being a so-called triple-combination pumper, which would combine a pump, hose, and soda-acid chemical tank in the same vehicle. At that point in time, a handful of automobile combination pumpers (pump & hose only) were in service with various fire departments around the country, but only one automobile triple-combination pumper had been built in America, and that was a one-off rig built by a local auto truck manufacturer for a volunteer fire company in New Jersey. . 

So not willing to wait any longer and risk losing support from the South Evanston aldermen, the Evanston City Council transferred $2,500 from the Water Fund to the fire department in January 1911  — something they had been unwilling to do in 1909 and in 1910 — allowing an engineer to be hired plus two horses and related equipment to be purchased that would allow the reserve steamer to be placed into front-line service at Station # 2, without waiting for the city to purchase the auto-truck fire engine that was authorized by the bond issue.

The acquisition of the two horses in 1911 brought the number of horses in service with the Evanston Fire Department to 19, the most the EFD would ever have. In addition, an assistant engineer and a fireman were transferred from Station # 1 to Station # 2, allowing the Ahrens steamer to (finally) be placed into front-line service at Station # 2. Thus, Truck Co. 2 became Engine Co. 2 on February 15, 1911, with nine men (a captain, a lieutenant, an engineer, an assistant engineer, and five firemen) assigned to Station # 2, operating with both the Ahrens Metropolitan steamer and the Seagrave combination truck (chemical engine, H&L, and hose tender).    

During the five years that it was in reserve at Station # 2, the Ahrens steamer made one run of significance. On Tuesday, September 6, 1910, the Village of Niles Center (later known as Skokie) sent an urgent message to the Evanston Fire Department, requesting assistance in battling a conflagration that threatened to destroy the village.

Chief Harrison detailed a squad of Evanston firemen to respond to Niles Center with the Babcock chemical-engine, a hose wagon, and the reserve steamer pulled by a team from the street department. Drafting water from Blameuser’s Pond, the EFD’s Ahrens steamer supplied water used to extinguish the blaze. Eight structures — two saloons, a barber shop, a furniture store, two barns, and two sheds — were destroyed, but the village was saved.

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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).

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