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In 1880, telephones
were installed in all of the fire stations.
Protection No 1,
which was now without an apparatus after its
steamer was repossessed, got a hose reel and
became a hose company. With the new water
system, hose reels and hose wagons became
more important. They were needed to lay the
fire hose.
Curtin No. 9
organized with a hose reel on Commerce
between Travis and Milam in 1881. Actually,
Curtin No. 9 organized a couple years
earlier as a junior fire company. Henry
Curtain organized the boys. He had been a
very active volunteer, beginning in the '60s
with Liberty No. 2. A couple of the boys
found a force pump in a junk yard and
mounted it onto a pine box. This served as
Curtain 9's fire apparatus. Henry Curtain
later began to recruit older men for the
company. After all of the junior
firefighters had been replaced, the 32 grown
men carried on the name of the company with
a hose reel and joined the volunteer fire
department.
William H. Coyle of
Hook & Ladder No. 1 was elected fire chief
in 1882. Albert Levy (Hook & Ladder No. 1)
and Alex Pastoriza (Stonewall No. 3)
were elected his assistant chiefs. The
volunteer fire department once again began
to crumble.
Because of the
problems with the volunteers, Coyle tried to
inaugurate a paid fire department in 1882 to
"ensure perfect discipline, if nothing
more." He had the backing of some
businessmen and aldermen. The firefighters
objected strongly.
The reason the fire
companies did not respond as promptly to
fires as in the past was because the city
had failed to provide supplies, engineers
and drivers, according to one firefighter.
He reasoned that if the city cannot afford
to help the volunteer fire department, how
could it afford a paid department? Many of
the volunteers were wealthy and politically
influential, and the proposal for a paid
department went down in defeat.
Two members of Hook
& Ladder No. 1, dissatisfied with the
condition of the fire station, torched the
wooden structure. The 1882 blaze destroyed
the building and a fire truck. Construction
of a new fire station began immediately at
the old site.
At the end of the
year, the International Compress was
destroyed along with 8,000 bales of cotton.
Galveston Fire Department sent two steamers
to aid the firefighters, after water mains
had burst in two places.
The Capitol Hotel
opened at Texas and Main on December 31,
1882. The hotel was later bought by William
Marsh Rice and was named the Rice Hotel
after Mr. Rice (who was murdered in 1900).
Stonewall No. 3
moved to a new location on Preston between
Louisiana and Smith. The company had 25
active members.
Chief Coyle was
injured in his second year as fire chief
(1883) when the front wall of the Fifth Ward
Hotel collapsed on him and three other
firefighters.
Brooks No. 5 never
was able to get another engine after
 losing
its steamer in 1878, and the fire company
folded in 1883.
Ben A. Riesner
(pictured) followed Chief Coyle in 1884 as
fire chief. Riesner was a successful
businessman and had been an avid volunteer
firefighter. He was instrumental in
preserving the volunteer fire department in
1882 by blocking efforts to start a fully
paid fire department. Local business leaders
and the insurance companies were pressing
city fathers to replace the volunteers.
There had been
problems developing in the volunteer
department during the past administration,
and Chief Riesner was able to bring the
department "through its peril and placed it
on the high road to success," according to
Fire Fighters of Houston, 1838-1915.
It was customary
for fire companies to drill occasionally by
starting six blocks from Market Square and,
on a given signal, race to the Square and
get water flowing through a hose. Each
company was assigned a hydrant in the
Square. Stonewall 3 and Mechanic 6 had been
making the fastest times, but Curtain 9 was
closing in on them at the last couple of
drills. On the latest drill, Curtain 9 beat
everyone to a plug. As the plugman swung
open the plug, the hose line pop off, and
Curtain 9 failed again to win. Someone had
filed the threads on a nipple of the
Curtain's fire hydrant. |
