Remembering Waco's early firefighters
By Terri Jo Ryan Special to the Tribune-Herald
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Waco, founded 160 years ago, was home by the early 1870s to two separate volunteer forces — an engine company in East Waco with a steam pumper valued at $7,500 ($128,000 in today’s dollars) and a hook and ladder brigade in downtown Waco, with a $1,200 truck ($20,500 in today’s dollars). The citywide Waco Fire Department was established in March 1874 as an all-volunteer operation when the two entities merged.
In the decades that followed, according to Illustrated Municipal Handbook of Waco: The Happy Prosperous City of Central Texas (1914), the only paid fire house personnel staffed the stations from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. All other shifts were covered by the efficient, well-trained volunteers.
The Waco Fire Department became a fully paid career department in 1917, on the cusp of World War I. At that time, there were more than five dozen paid firefighters, eight stations and 15 pieces of apparatus. By 1930, the department had grown to more than 100 professional firefighters covering 12.5 square miles and a population of almost 53,000.
Sources: A History of Texas and Texans, by Frank W. Johnson, (1914); iafflocal478.org; Waco-Texas.com; Texas Collection at Baylor University; Illustrated Municipal Handbook of Waco: The Happy Prosperous City of Central Texas (1914).
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