by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Firefighting has changed a great deal over the years so that, as of 2020, the U.S. Fire Administration reported that of some 27 million “runs” or calls made to departments nationwide, almost two-thirds of them were for emergency medical services (EMS) and rescues, while only 4% were fire-related.
Going back to 1912 the period connected to the highlighted artifact from the Homestead’s collection for this post—this being a photo of the horse-drawn, steam-powered truck at Los Angeles Fire Department Engine Company No. 3—it was very different, with fires being far more commonplace.
This was for a multiplicity of reasons, not the least of which were that many structures were still built of wood, while those commercial buildings that were of other materials, principally brick, were often filled with flammable material and safety standards were far different than what we have today in terms of construction types, codes and ordinances, and other elements.
It should also be pointed out that firefighting was a very dangerous job, with gear not like today, uniforms and clothing far different, conditions in buildings much more challenging and industry standards and methods of training still evolving, among a myriad of factors. The situation, needless to say, for those employed as firefighters was very far removed 110 or so years ago, than it is today.
As has been noted here before, the first organized fire department in Los Angeles was an all-volunteer force, Engine Company No. 1, established in 1871. There were eventually several volunteer forces in the Angel City, including the 38s, of which Elijah H. Workman (nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste) was a member. In 1886, as Los Angeles was about to enter into the great Boom of the Eighties, the decision was made to professionalize and the Los Angeles Fire Department was created.
Engine Company No. 3 was organized just after this in 1887 at a rented site on Main and First streets on the southeast corner where the ultramodern Caltrans District 7 headquarters is today. An unusual early news report concerning this station came from the Los Angeles Times of 3 September 1889, which recorded that, at 11:30 p.m., observers noted a firefighter sleepwalking and going from the side of a second-story balcony at the front of the engine house to the roof of the building next door before grabbing a telegraph wire and stopping. When a gent on the opposite side of the street yelled out to him, the firefighter turned and went back in the station as if he’d never heard the warning.
In 1890, the company moved to Third Street just west of Main where the Ronald Reagan State Building stands now and, for the New Year’s Day 1891 edition of the Los Angeles Herald, it was reported that Engine Company No. 3 had a second-class steam engine drawn by a pair of horses and built by the Amoskeag Locomotive Works in New Hampshire before it closed in 1876 and a cart with 800 feet of hose. Staff included a foreman, engineer, two drivers and four callmen—these last being part-time firefighters who responded to calls when needed.
In March 1892, the Los Angeles Express noted that one of the callmen from the station was suspending for not responding to a call. A little over a year later, the company’s engineer was handed a ten-day suspension by Chief Michael Curran, though no reason was supplied in the brief account published by the Times.
During 1895, there was a report of a new alarm call recording system installed at the fire house, in which a “new indicator at the tap of the gong throws up the number of the box” from which the alarm was made. Yet, later that year, Chief Walter S. Moore, who’d served three prior stints in that office between 1883 and 1893, clashed with a member of the city’s Fire Commission (which was not an uncommon occurrence) over staffing of the company’s driver after complaining earlier in the meeting over a lack of office space.
In November, a terrible incident occurred involving not only the death of the first firefighter while on duty, but that of the first African-American to serve with the LAFD. Sam Haskins, who was born into slavery in Virginia, came to the Angel City about 1880 and was well-known in Democratic Party politics within the Black community, was hired as a callman.
On the evening of the 19th, Haskins was riding on an engine passing by the Baker Block on Main Street where U.S. 101 runs through downtown now when, as the road surface was rutted and there was a streetcar track, he lost his footing and was caught between a wheel and the boiler and was crushed. It took ten minutes to remove the wheel and reports indicated that Hoskins was burned by the boiler, though it was later revealed that this was not possible because of the insulation of the device.
He was finally removed and taken to the engine house where he was placed on a mattress, but attempts to save Haskins’ life were futile and he died five minutes later. The firefighter was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights with funeral expenses paid for by the City, though his grave went unmarked for over a century until a headstone was placed there in 2004.
Notably, modern accounts state that Haskins worked for Engine Company No. 2, which was then based at First and Chicago streets in Boyle Heights, over two miles from the scene of the tragedy and the reason is that the reporting in the papers at the time gave that company number.
The Herald of the 20th, however, noted that an alarm call was made at 5:55 and that, within two minutes, the engine and a hood and ladder truck were rumbling down the paving stones and along the tracks of Main Street when the accident took place. Obviously, given the location of the fire house for Engine Company No. 2, it would not have been possible for the crew to have gotten ready and the vehicles to have traveled that far in that short amount of time. Moreover, it was reported that Haskins was carried to the engine house for treatment before he died.
Beyond this, the Express of the same date, after reporting that Haskins was with Engine Company No. 2, then noted in the same edition that Chief Moore reported to the Fire Commission that morning that Haskins was with Engine Company No. 3, which was not quite a half-mile south of the accident scene, a much closer location to which to take the mortally wounded man in the attempt to save his life. The Times, in its issue of the 21st, directly quoted Moore as telling the oversight body,
It is my sad duty to report that on the 19th inst. at 6 p.m., while responding to an alarm of fire, Callman Sam Haskins was accidentally killed by being crushed between the hind wheel and boiler of Engine No. 3. The deceased was for more than five years past connected with the department and was a faithful and industrious fireman.
When the Express of the 21st briefly summarized the findings of the coroner’s inquest, which found the cause to be accidental, it was repeated that Haskins was “the callman of Engine Company No. 3.” Given all of this, it is important to note that the first Black firefighter in Los Angeles Fire Department history, who sacrificed his life on duty, being the first member of the department to do so, was working for Engine Company No. 3 at the time of his death.
In August 1897, in an attempt to save money, the Department merged Engine Company No. 3 with Chemical Company No. 1, which was based on Marchessault Street just off the Plaza in what was then the west edge of Chinatown and moved to the engine company’s third location, established in October at 410-412 North Main, now the site of a parking lot at the northeast corner with Arcadia Street and just south of the extant Pico House, Merced Theatre and Masonic Lodge buildings that are next to the Plaza.
In the final several years of the 19th century, Engine Company No. 3 joined other units of the Department in appearances for the springtime La Fiesta de Los Angeles, Independence Day parades, and other events, while continuing to do its daily work. There continued to be occasional personnel incidents, including a foreman accused of cowardice during a blaze, for which he was reprimanded, a firefighter suspended for ignoring an order and then verbally attacking Captain Samuel A. Lennon, and a foreman who admitted to being drunk while on duty as he misjudged the pole leading from the second floor quarters while responding to a call and landing on the floor. Yet, we know, obviously, that firefighters at the station continued to serve the public day in and day out often putting their lives at risk.
As the century came to a close, in December 1900, the chief, Thomas Strohm (who replaced Moore in March and had served in that role in 1887-1888 and 1889-1891) called for a new house for the company, as well as headquarters for the LAFD on property recently purchased on Hill Street and 2nd Street. The fourth station house moved earlier that year to the east side of Hill north of Fourth Street, but with a lease due to expire in November 1901, it was considered time to invest in a building built by and on a lot owned by the city.
On 16 December 1901, the Times reported that the structure, costing north of $17,000, designed by Frank D. Hudson, recently a city building inspector and then, with William Munsell, an architect who designed with his partner the oldest building at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and built by Louis Jacobi, was formally accepted by the City. The paper recorded,
For convenience the house is a model. It contains everything to be found in a modern fire-engine house. In its construction the comfort of both the men and the horses has been consulted. There is a large and airy dormitory for the sixteen men who will live in the house, to sleep in, and a spacious parlor in which they can while away their leisure hours.
The chief’s office was finished in oak with hardwood floors and a telephone exchange allowed for easy communication with the entire department. To keep the smell from the stables from penetrating into the second-floor dormitory and offices, the opening for the sliding pole had doors with automatically closing hinges and other means were employed to separate those spaces.
A driveway allowed for vehicles to be taken to a rear courtyard for washing and cleaning before being parked in the station and avoided fatigue to the horses which had to move backward to place the vehicles in the former location. A celebratory dinner was hosted by the architect at the Del Monte Restaurant with Mayor Meredith P. Snyder offering a toast to Chief Strohm, who was unable to attend due to an injury. Fire Commissioner Jacob Kuhrts, who was a member of the early volunteer department and chief from 1880-1883, regaled those in attendance with “several stories of the early days” of firefighting in Los Angeles.
Just a few days prior to the opening and with Strohm out, Department secretary Robert Burns (there’s an apt name for you and we don’t mean because of Scottish poetry!) got into a brouhaha with Captain Lennon after Burns arrived at a fire and ordered a chemical engine employed while Lennon countermanded it and then the latter threatened to punch the former. Yet, when Christmas came, Burns was a special guest for a turkey dinner at the engine house and headquarters, as well as at Engine Company No. 5—though it was noted that a fire interrupted the celebration, though crews knocked down the blaze and returned to finish their holiday meals.
Over the next decade, Engine Company No. 3 was sometimes mentioned with firefighting efforts that often involved injury to crew members, including smoke inhalation, burns, cuts and bruises from broken glass and falling debris and the general run of dangers confronting Department personnel as they carried out their work of service. In December 1906, for example, a paper company fire led to five firefighters being carried unconscious from the building, including Chief Walter Lips, a Los Angeles native who served from 1905 to 1910 before becoming Deputy Sheriff (and, in the early 1920s, serving two years at San Quentin on a bribery conviction).
A few months later, a blaze at the Germain Building involved more injuries to personnel battling a major downtown conflagration. In June 1910, the station’s personnel responding quickly to a mysterious fire at the City Jail, next to the courthouse at Broadway and Temple and which turned out to have scaled the building through hollow columns from the kitchen where the blaze originated. These are just a few instances of the dangerous work done by the engine company in those years.
There were occasional bizarre incidents involving Engine Company No. 3 personnel in the early years of the 20th century, as well. For New Year’s Day 1903, driver John G. Todd was out carousing with a couple of friends when they all pulled their pistols to fire off some celebratory shots, though Todd and W.W. Burton had blanks in their weapons. Lauren Hanna, however, had real bullets in his gun and when he tried to fire behind his neck in an arc, he hit a bystander in the forehead with death following the next day.
In June 1907, fireman W.F. Thomas walked to a nearby cheap restaurant for dinner and ordered pudding for dessert, but then took violently ill after noticing a bitter taste and then fishing out a large wad of tobacco hidden in the dish. He was rushed to a hospital where surgeons labored for quite some time to save him from nicotine poisoning. It was determined that another patron ordered the dessert, decided not to eat it and then stuffed their tobacco in it to finish the rest of their meal, but this “comeback” was obviously the fault of the server in passing the dessert on to the unfortunate Thomas.
In early 1912, prior to the postcard being mailed, there were several incidents of note involving Engine Company No. 3, including an 11 January fire at the Nadeau Hotel, at Spring and 1st streets; a blaze at a building on Broadway between 3rd and 4th streets involving the Fletcher Tailoring Company, which then issued an ad for a “Fire and Smoke Sale” though it assured customers it had thoroughly steaming and airing the fabric; and firefighter Elmer E. Rhodes getting in contact with burning gasoline which led him to being rolled by colleagues in the dirt street and doused with wet sacks to put out the flames.
As to the card, it is addressed to Mary Collins, who lived near Echo Park, and was penned by a member of the engine company identified only as Walter. He wrote her,
I am going to keep my promise and send you the little picture I promised. I think it just fine of the horses and the engine is very clear, but, the engineer, Oh My, well, we won’t mention that. Well, I have just this minute got through wiping up the grease off the machinery and tomorrow I will have an all day job, so early to bed.
While it seems obvious the sender was writing to a sweetheart and on the day prior to Valentine’s Day, identifying Walter proved to be a bit tricky. Fortunately, the great website of the Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive, on its page devoted to Engine Company No. 3, happens to have the same photo, though it only identified driver Joaquin Louis Constantine and, holding a shovel while standing next to the engine, Frank Nelson. Several photos down, however, is another image with the identification of “Engineer Gola.”
Searching for that name, however, came up empty, so another attempt was made on Ancestry.com for the 1910 census with “Walter” and “Fireman” as search terms and what came up was Walter Vance Golay (1879-1948.) A native of Vevay, Indiana, at the southeast corner of the state along the Ohio River roughly halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville, Golay came to California with his family during the Boom of the Eighties, following his mother’s uncle, John D. Works, who went to San Diego in 1883.
Works, who subsequently moved to Los Angeles, was an attorney, Superior Court judge and justice on the state Supreme Court, as well as a member and president of the Los Angeles City Council and, for one term, a United States Senator. His son, Lewis, was a partner with Works and then went on to be a Superior Court judge and state Appellate Court judge, including the presiding magistrate for the second district.
Golay worked in a San Diego livery stable as a young man and parlayed those skills into his work with the LAFD after he joined, following passing civil service examinations in 1907 and 1911. After the latter, he was appointed an engineer and went to work for Engine Company No. 3. The Los Angeles Municipal News of 22 January 1913 recorded that, for the prior year, Golay, who was married three times (but not to Mary Collins), was one of nearly 70 LAFD personnel “named on the roll of merit” for their service. He remained a member of the department for at least twenty years before retiring and moving to Fallbrook in San Diego County and then Lindsay, near Sequoia National Park, where he died on his ranch.
As for Engine Company No. 3, a new structure was built in 1924 at the Hill and 2nd location with an annexed office building and garage on the north for LAFD headquarters added in 1950, though the HQ relocated to City Hall East in 1973. The Engine Company complex was sold and razed with a multi-story parking garage for the Wells Fargo Center now occupying the site. A new home for the engine company was established in 1980 on First Street between Figueroa Street and the 110 Freeway.
This photo is a great visual document of an old steam-powered horse-driven steam fire engine, as well as for the fire house, which also served as LAFD headquarters for nearly three-quarters of a century, and the story of Sam Haskins, the department’s first Black firefighter. We have other images related to the Department that we will certainly look to share in future posts on this blog.