Posts Tagged SAM HARRISON

Evanston Fire Department history – part 4

More from Phil Stenholm: Part 1Part 2Part 3

As promised, the trustees did attempt to organize a paid fire department in May 1882. They appropriated $850 to compensate the Fire Marshal and other firemen for their service with the fire department. The Fire Marshal was to be paid a part-time salary of $100 per year, each member of a nine-man part-time fire company would be paid $50 per year, and a full-time police/fire officer (combination village night-watchman/fire apparatus caretaker) would receive an annual salary of $600, with 1/2 of the salary to be paid by the police department, and 1/2 of the salary to be paid by the fire department.

Although Fire Marshal Bailey did receive his salary, and ex-Pioneer Hose Company member Austin McDonough was appointed as a full-time police/fire officer, the proposed nine-man part-time fire company did not materialize. The position of police/fire officer was eliminated in May 1885.

On May, 1, 1883, after two years of broken promises by the village board, Chief Bailey once again offered to resign. This time, the trustees accepted his resignation. However, by the spring of 1883, President J. J. Parkhurst and Trustees H. G. Lunt, C. L. Jenks, C. F. Grey, J. C. Allen, and Thomas Lord, the six members of the village board from May 1881, had mostly-all been replaced. Only President Parkhurst remained, and the newer trustees — especially former Evanston Firefighter Alexander Drummond — could see the urgency of establishing a fire company in Evanston that would be effective in fighting fires as the Pioneer and Gilbert hose companies had been, and at the same time, adequately compensated for service to the village.

On July 17, 1883, the Village of Evanston Board of Trustees appointed Davis Street merchant and former C. J. Gilbert Hose Company officer Sam Harrison to the position of Fire Marshal, and directed the new chief to organize a part-time/paid fire company. On July 28th, Chief Harrison who, like Bob Bailey, owned a butcher shop, offered the new 12-man company to the village board for consideration and approval. The company was officially accepted for service on November 6, 1883. Each member of the company was paid $40 per year as compensation for serving as a fireman, with the Fire Marshal still receiving $100.

The EFD’s first horse-drawn hose wagon, built by Evanstonian Gerhard Brienen, and pulled by a horse named Dave, was placed into service in October 1883, as the new fire company was moved into a remodeled paint shop located at the northwest corner of Sherman Avenue and the north alley of Davis Street (later to be the site of the first city parking garage).

In addition to the one-horse, four-wheeled two-axle hose wagon known as the Fire Patrol, and the two-horse Babcock chemical-engine (converted to a horse-drawn appliance in 1884), a horse-drawn hook & ladder wagon with a two-horse hitch built by the Davenport Fire Apparatus Company was placed into service in 1885. From 1885 to 1892, the two horses assigned to pull the hook & ladder truck were also used by the street department to pull a garbage wagon when not needed by the EFD. The Davenport truck remained in continuous front-line service for more than 32 years, until it was removed from service and scrapped in January 1918.

The new company formed by Sam Harrison in 1883 is the genesis of  Engine Co. 1 later known as Engine Co. 21. Chief Harrison personally commanded the company for the first few years, before turning the reigns over to J. E. “Jack” Sweeting in 1895. In addition to being the first captain of Engine Co. 1, Sweeting would also become the EFD’s first Assistant Chief Fire Marshal in 1905. Chief Sweeting spent all 25 of his years with the EFD as a member of Engine Co. 1. He died of stomach cancer on Christmas Day 1912. He also held the Evanston Fire Department’s longevity record for most years on the job, until George Hargreaves celebrated his Silver Anniversary in 1918.

At 10:45 PM on Tuesday, September 25, 1883, the new fire company responded to a report of smoke coming from the Dwight-Buell stable in the rear of the Avenue House at the northeast corner of Davis & Chicago. (The Avenue House hotel, with its quaint wrap-around porch, was torn down and replaced with the modern North Shore Hotel in 1916). Upon arrival at the stable, Chief Sam Harrison was advised that 31-year old coachman George Gale (like Harrison, a native of England) was probably asleep inside. Despite repeated efforts by firemen, Gale died of smoke inhalation before he could be rescued. Since the fire was an obvious case of arson, the Cook County Coroner ruled the death a homicide. There was a belief around the village that the fire behind the Avenue House was related to other recent arson fires in the village, fires that started soon after the new fire company was formed. However, the fires stopped immediately after Gale was killed, and no one was ever charged with his murder.

At 8:50 AM on Thursday, December 20, 1883, a fire was reported at Evanston Township High School. Located at the northeast corner of Crain & Benson (Benson Avenue south of Davis Street was later known as Elmwood Avenue), ETHS was only three months old. Evanston fire fighters were not yet familiar with the floor-plan of the new facility, and had difficulty navigating through the smoky interior. Fearing his men could become trapped while searching for the seat of the blaze, Chief Harrison telegraphed an urgent request for assistance to the Chicago Fire Department, marking the first time in its history that the EFD requested mutual-aid from another fire department. At approximately 11 AM, an express train (engine, coal tender, coach, box car, and flat car) loaded with a steam fire engine, a hose reel, spare hose, ladders, and other fire fighting equipment — plus CFD Assistant Fire Marshal George Petrie (chief of the CFD repair shops) with 10 men–arrived in Evanston, a scant 19 minutes after departing from Chicago. Within another hour, the fire was extinguished, and ETHS was saved with only $5,000 in damage and no injuries.

Sam’s boys were not always quite so successful, however. On Sunday night, November 22, 1884, the First Congregational Church at Grove & Hinman was destroyed by fire after firefighters opened the doors and windows in an effort to ventilate heat and smoke from the building, unintentionally letting in a fierce wind that fanned a relatively small blaze into a fire-storm.  The neighborhood was saved, but not the church, which sustained a $32,000 loss. Twenty-year old rookie fireman Tim Kelleher, at his first fire, suffered smoke inhalation that developed into a respiratory infection, which led to consumption (tuberculosis), and eventually his death in July 1888. How much the smoke inhalation actually contributed to his death some 3-1/2 years later was disputed at the time and is still not known for sure, but it certainly could have been a factor.

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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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