Author: FFP Ai Bot

Fostoria firefighters and their horse teams outside the North Street firehouse, early 1900s

FOSTORIA — When the alarm sounded in Fostoria a century and more ago, the first thing to move was the horses. The photo above, a sepia print from the early 1900s, shows two fire wagons drawn up in front of a brick firehouse on North Street, one behind a dark team and the other behind a pair of white horses, with their drivers in the seats and the station doors thrown open behind them.

The building is very likely the same one that still stands at 123 W. North St., the old City Hall and fire station that is now the Fostoria Museum. Here is what the records say about the department in its horse-drawn years.

Quick timeline

Year	What happened
1872	Engine Company No. 1, called the Pioneer, is organized.
1873	Relief Hook and Ladder Company No. 1 is organized.
1877	The company buys its first steam fire engine. City Hall on West North Street is built about this time.
1880	The Relief Hook and Ladder Association forms as a benefit society for firemen.
About 1881	The Pioneer company’s old hand engine is destroyed by fire.
1884	A second steam engine arrives.
1897	Firemen keep a basement explosion and fire inside the new Alcott Block, saving the Hays Hotel.
1974	The department leaves the North Street building for a new station.

Volunteers and a hand engine

According to the 1886 History of Seneca County, Fostoria’s organized fire service dates to 1872, when Engine Company No. 1, known as the Pioneer, was formed. Its first engine was a hand pumper, worked by men on the handles. The county history notes, with some irony, that the hand engine itself burned about 1881.

Relief Hook and Ladder Company No. 1 followed in 1873. In April 1880 members formed the Relief Hook and Ladder Association, a benefit society that the county history says had about $1,000 paid in to help firemen and their families.

The steam age

Steam pumpers changed everything. Fostoria bought its first steam fire engine in 1877 and a second in 1884. By the time the county history was written in 1886, the department had two Silsby steam engines, one hook and ladder truck, three hose carts and one fire team of horses.

A steamer was heavy, and its boiler had to be fired up while the horses ran. Hose carts and wagons followed with the line. The photo shows that by the early 1900s the department had at least two teams in harness, with a wagon loaded high with gear on the right.

Two teams and their drivers outside the North Street firehouse, early 1900s

A firehouse that became a museum

The Fostoria Area Historical Society says the building at 123 W. North St. was built in 1877 and served for many years as City Hall. By 1958 it housed the fire, police, water and health departments, the municipal court and all city offices. The city moved its offices to a new Municipal Building in 1959, but the fire department stayed on North Street until 1974, when it moved to its current site, the former Whittier School property. The historical society then opened the Fostoria Museum in the old building, where a 1941 Seagrave ladder pumper left behind by the department is still on display.

Fires of the horse era

The horse-drawn department faced some hard tests. In 1897, four years after the Alcott Block went up at Main and Center streets, a barrel of asphaltum exploded in its basement, causing $10,000 damage. A 1981 historical society column says firemen kept that fire to the Alcott building and saved the Hays Hotel next door. (See our companion story on the Alcott Block.)

Six years later, on a snowy February afternoon in 1903, an explosion destroyed a cane factory on South Main Street. A local newspaper complained that the snow made it impossible “for the fire teams to make any speed.” (See our companion story on the 1903 explosion.)

We could not find a reliable date for when Fostoria retired its last fire horses for motor apparatus, so we have left it out. Today the Fostoria Fire Department works from 233 W. South St. with 21 full-time personnel on three 24-hour shifts, providing fire, rescue and advanced life support EMS.

More from FFP: St. Wendelin: 175 Years of Church and School and The “Hidden Tunnels” Beneath Fostoria.

Photo note: Photographs and images published before 1931 are in the public domain in the United States. Historical images in this article are shared for educational and historical purposes.

Sources

• History of Seneca County, Ohio (Chicago: Warner, Beers & Co., 1886), Fostoria chapter, “Fire Department” (transcription): https://blockbefore.com/township-fostoria-city-seneca-oh.html
• Fostoria Area Historical Society, Fostoria Museum: https://www.fostoriamuseum.org/fostoria-museum/
• Fostoria Area Historical Society, Historical Look at East Side of Main, From Tiffin to Center (1981): https://www.fostoriamuseum.org/historical-look-at-east-side-of-main-from-tiffin-to-center/
• City of Fostoria, Fire Department: https://www.fostoriaohio.gov/1199/Fire
• Fostoria newspaper, “HORRIBLE! Fostoria’s Most Awful Tragedy,” February 1903 (public domain)