Early Stations/ First Equipment-The first station was located where city hall stood at that time, which was then located at the intersection of Fourth and Indiana Avenue. Some years later the department moved to a building next to the American Legion, and finally in 1928 to it’s current location next city hall. The original station at the current location had one bay with two large doors that swung out.

A remodeling project in the early 1970’s allowed for two more bays on Carolina Avenue, along with a meeting room, kitchen, office, etc.

The newest remodeling project started in 2003. It includes a new two-story building built at the rear of the station, with three new bays in the basement to hold the department ‘s boats. The upstairs will hold a new office, a meeting room, and conference room, a kitchen, and rest rooms and storage space.

The first equipment was a hose reel cart. This cart consisted of two large wheels and a giant reel of hose. It was pulled by firefighters to the scene of the fire. It was very heavy and so firemen had to wait till 7 or 8 guys arrived and then pull it. You could imagine by the time enough guys got to the station, and then pulled the cart many blocks, there wasn’t much of a chance to put out a fire. The next equipment was a hose wagon drawn by horses. At first the department didn’t have horses specifically used for this and so they would use horses off the street by farmers. A short time later the department was given horses to keep in a stable near the station. However, these horses were not trained to get under the harness and it took 10-12 guys to hold the horses while they got the harness on. So this method wasn’t much more efficient than the hand reel cart as far as saving time, but the men were in better shape when they got to the fire. (They weren’t tired from pulling the cart for 5 or 6 blocks.) As far as saving property was concerned there was little improvement…too much time getting to the fire.

The first motorized fire truck was from Lafrance Equipment and was shipped February 28^th-1917 and arrived March 5th-1917. It was taken to the fire station and chemicals were secured, the tank charged, and hose loaded onto it and made ready for use. It would be six days after it was received before it was used on a “memorable fire”