Stop 21 – Sleeping Quarters for the Paid Drivers

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When the new Fire Station and City Hall was built in nineteen-oh-four, it brought one big change from the first station: the paid drivers now slept upstairs, on the second floor. A brass pole gave them a fast way down to the engine room below. The City Jail was still on the first floor.

Take a look at the pieces in front of you. The chair was presented to Mike Bauer when he retired as Fire Chief in nineteen twenty-two. The duty desk, the telephone, the alarm gong, and even the flooring all came from those second-floor quarters. And the coat and hat belonged to Leo Wilcox, a paid driver who served from nineteen twenty-two to nineteen fifty-four. That's thirty-two years.

In the nineteen fifty-three photograph of the first floor, you can spot that brass pole on the right side. In the photo below it, Leo Wilcox himself poses with Fire Chief Harry Bishof.