by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Concluding this post on some early history of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Engine Company No. 1, we head into the early 20th century, noting that as the 19th century came to a close, the Los Angeles Record of 31 January 1900 and the Angel City and environs was poised to enter its third major boom period and first since the late Eighties, the city’s Fire Commission made its personnel assignments to an expanded 18 fire houses, among which there were 117 firefighters with a payroll of not far under $8,000 a month.
Included among the staff were eight engineers of the first class, three of the second rank, four captains, five first lieutenants, a half-dozen second lieutenants and a trio of third lieutenants. At Engine Company No. 1, houses in a wood-frame structure at the northeast corner of Pasadena Avenue and Avenue 19 in what was then East Los Angeles, now Lincoln Heights, the second-class first lieutenant was Frank Leiva, the engineer was Hugh Heaney, Joe Sepulveda was a first-class driver, his brother Solomon was the hoseman, and William Bress was a fourth-class driver.
A big event with the onset of the new century was the visit to Los Angeles of President William McKinley. For a massive parade held in the chief executive’s honor and taking place during the La Fiesta de los Flores, formerly La Fiesta de Los Angeles, event that was held since 1894, Chief Engineer Thomas Strohm issued orders, appearing in the 12 April 1901 edition of the Los Angeles Express that included,
You are hereby ordered to have the apparatus of your respective companies cleaned and polished and decorated in an artistic manner.
Company commanders will see that no decorations are put on the appar[a]tus that will interfere in the least with the apparatus being called into momentary service.
Engines will only be decorated between the play pipes near the driver’s seat, including the driver’s seat, provided the decorations do not interfere with the driver.
Strohm also instructed that, while the Engine Company No. 1’s engine would participate in the parade, the hose cart and two firefighters would remain at the station house and be on duty to handle any alarms and calls in the district in which it operated. Four months after his La Fiesta appearance in the Angel City, President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, becoming our third chief executive, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James Garfield in 1881, to be murdered while in office.
A notable feature related to the company was published in the Los Angeles Times of 8 May 1902 regarding an alarm call in an area of Northeast Los Angeles near Montecito Heights and Highland Park. The paper called the response from the engine house “one of the most tremendous runs in the history of the Los Angeles fire department” as “the horses of engine company, No. 1, located in East Los Angeles, dragged the heavy old pumper three miles at a gallop.
The alarm was received a little after 10 a.m. and the weather was rapidly heating up, while the personnel were relaxing after a thorough cleaning when the gong was heard. Yet, “before the first signal had struck through, the veteran beasts [horses] were plunging from the stalls into the drop harness,” this latter “came down with a snip snap,” while the driver attached the reins and the house doors opened up. From there, the account, providing us rare detail of a horse-drawn engine call, continued,
With a scramble, the team started and the old hooker rolled out into the street for the longest run in its history.
It went tearing down through the streets of East Los Angeles at a gallop. The horse cart came along behind, careening and bouncing like a ship in a squall.
They made for Pasadena avenue, and went scorching down the hill, where East Los Angeles tips over into the arroyo [Seco]. It’s something of a trick, mind you, to drive a heavy fire engine down a hill like that.
Then they went over the bridge and settled down for the long run where the street stretches level as a floor to Glen Mary [there is a Glen Mary Archway on Figueroa Street across from Sycamore Grove Park].
The old horses kept it up gamely with every nerve straining until they arrived at Sycamore Grove.
When they got to the shade of old beer garden [dating back around three decades or so], the hose-cart horse gave out . . .
The fire-engine horses kept on to the hill. The road rises sharply just beyond the beer garden.
The team came to a stop a few yards up the hill. They were half-dead from exhaustion, and could not pull another pound.
The firemen manned the wheels, and the big engine was coaxed up the hill, foot by foot, by the spokes.
Alas, when they reached their destination, the crew found that all there was to the conflagration was a pile of brush at the residence of Judge Matthew T. Allen, so the record mad dash was to no avail, other than having it recorded by the breathless account of the Express, the name of which was entirely appropriate for its coverage. An accompanying illustration depicted the fire crew and, presumably, some local residents pushing the engine, with its large steam boiler, up that last hill.
A view into the expenses of the LAFD at the dawn of the 20th century is provided by the Times of 13 July 1902 as it noted that general costs were almost $21,000, including the salaries of the chief, central office personnel and supplies. Engine Company No. 1 had its separate expenses of just over $6,000, which the seventh highest among the eighteen companies, of which eleven were for engines, two for chemical engines, and five were for hoses—the total for all the companies being around $100,000. By contrast, one source states that the department’s overall 2024 budget was not far below $840 million.
The 3 October issue of the Express covered the usual department assignments by the Commission, but the paper observed that, during the typically sedate proceedings, “one slight jolt was felt.” This concerned the appointment of the top position for Engine Company No. 7, situated at Maple and 24th streets in South Los Angeles (the building still standing at that northeast corner appears to be at least the partially intact firehouse) and it was reported that,
Sixty-nine citizens living in the vicinity sent in a petition asking that Joseph Sepulveda be appointed captain in the place of C.G. Miller, who is to resign.
After the petition was read the commissioners promptly filed it, after which it was decided to appoint W.J. Gardiner to the coveted position . . . The latter has been one of the prize[d] members of the department since 1886 . . . Commissioners stated that he was next in line for promotion. Sepulveda is an old member of the department, but he recently received a backset [setback] in the form of official censure and imposition of fine for acts in violation of department rules.
Sepúlveda, who was featured in part two in some detail as the scion of one of the early Spanish-era settlers in Los Angeles, worked at Engine Company No. 1 for several years, but also resided at West 16th Street, which was much closer to station number 7 than his former location. As for that censure, that resulted in July from a complaint by an Engine Company No. 1 lieutenant, who reported that, as we saw in part two on other occasions, Sepúlveda was reported to be “drunk and disorderly and unfit for duty.”
When he appeared before the Fire Commission, Mayor Meredith P. Snyder remarked “we are determined to maintain the standard of the fire department. This cannot be done if members of the department dark [drink] constantly.” The Express of 10 July noted “only extenuating circu[m]stances saved Sepulveda from the disgrace of discharge,” as he was a veteran of a decade and had a clean record with no reprimands.
Commissioner Jake Kuhrts, a stalwart from the 38s volunteer fire company days, this being the forerunner to Engine Company No. 1, remarked that “the fireman is one of the best in the department in any position to which he is called.” Moreover, it was noted that “Sepulveda has a wife in poor health and two little ones to support,” so “in view of these facts the board heavily fined the man to the extent of $50” and he was to report to duty the following day. In conclusion, Mayor Snyder told Sepúlveda, who went on to work for the LAFD for almost three more decades, retiring early in 1930,
The fact that you have a wife and family should appeal to you to refrain from further actions of this sort. Beside this fact you owe full duty to this city which employs you. We cannot allow such actions on the part of our firemen.
Another personnel matter of note during this period came in September 1905 when, as the Express of the 16th reported, driver Charles Elgin was charged by lieutenant George W Bright as being “afflicted with an unusual number of friends among the fair sex and called up over the telephone at all hours of the day and night,” while Bright asserted that Elgin did not properly care for the engine’s horses.
The driver, however, told the commission that he was soon to be wedded and that he cleaned his horses with castile soap. Yet, the following week, Elgin was also charged with disobeying Bright’s orders and a loss of a month’s pay and a severe reprimand was meted out to him. The prior June, sibling firemen F.H. and R.H. Welts were docked three and five days of pay for insubordination to Captain C.E. Gratzinger.
Interesting news in July of that year came when Percy Williams, known in the boxing world as “Kid” and a former Pacific Coast lightweight champion, scored highest in the exam for a driver with the department. The 24-year old Tennessee native was said to have “already won laurels in his new line of [fire] fighting and has risked his life on several occasions in daring rescues of persons from burning buildings” in his role as a hose operator for Engine Company No. 1.
The name of Hugh Heaney has been mention a couple of times in this post and, in February 1904, he appeared before the Fire Commission on his application for a pension. The department veteran, whose career began in 1888 with assignment to Engine Company No. 1, was nearing his 67th birthday when, in late June the previous year, the company responded to a fire two blocks from the station and he was injured when a hose burst “and he was thrown about twenty feet by the force of the stream, which struck him in the abdomen.”
Heaney returned to work, but encountered subsequent stomach and liver problems and he retired in November 1903, but, lacking any income, he was the first LAFD firefighter to petition for and receive a disability pension. He was supported by city health officer Luther M. Powers and two doctors, with an attorney representing Heaney, as well, and informing the board that his client was unable to work and was permanently disabled. The Express of 2 February 1904 commented that “upon such showing he was retired on a pension of $55 a month, or half his former salary.” Heaney died five years later, with a son, William, on the crew of Engine Company No. 19.
With respect to the featured photo from our collection for this post, Engine Company No. 1 continued to enter decorated vehicles for the La Fiesta de los Flores, including the 1902 edition, with the Times of 9 May mentioning that its entry included “stars of red and Fiesta colors with flags of the same colors [these included green and gold]. There were ropes of carnations, smilax and many lilies used in the decoration.”
Four years later, the 24 May issue of the Times reported that the third division in the La Fiesta parade included this description, which is almost certainly the entry that is shown in the cabinet card image:
To the music of tinkling of mission bells moved a flower-laden mission of the padres that had sprung into mysterious being over the wheels of the hose wagon of Engine Company No. 1, from Pasadena avenue. In this float rode Eddie, Nellie and Grace Simms, Blanche Lloyd, Grace Johnson and Hattie Lunceford. Clad in robes of clinging white and throned in bowers of green and gold, they formed a part of one of the handsomest floats in the parade. Capt. Groziana was in charge. He was assisted by Driver A.B. Carroll.
Looking at the vehicle, which is certainly not the engine, and which has the bell atop the two-gabled roof and seeing the young women in their white dresses, it seems like this is the 1906 entry. In addition to the captain and driver at the reins, there are two crew members standing on Pasadena Avenue in front of the vehicle, while leaning against the station house sliding doors appears to be a Black or Latino firefighter. Another member of the company can be partially seen between the horses and cart among several other bystanders.
Just several months before, at the end of 1904, the Times of 15 December informed readers that Chief Walter Lips recommended to the Fire Commission that a few station houses be upgraded, including “the selling of the building on Griffin avenue, near Downey avenue, and the erection of a brick building in its place which will be large enough to house Engine Company No. 1 and a city service hook and ladder truck, for general use in Garvanza [at the northeast end of the city near Pasadena], the East Side and Boyle Heights.”
Despite his petition, this action was not undertaken and the wood-frame building remained in use for another 35 years. It was not until early 1941 that a new station house was built a few blocks away at the southwest corner of Pasadena Avenue and North Avenue 23. The Art Deco single-story structure, was constructed by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency, at a cost of $80,000, of which 45% was contributed by the City.
The Lincoln Heights Bulletin-News of 30 January commented that the turning over of the station by the W.P.A. “climaxed a fifteen-year fight by the Los Angeles Fire department to obtain a new edifice to replace the ramshackle wooden building” that preceded it, while the house “is considered one of the premier fire houses of its size in the west.” The old structure was deemed a “fire trap” and the paper’s 14 February issue remarked,
Los Angeles’ oldest fire station, at 1901 Pasadena Ave., housing Engine Co. No. 1, is to be vacated within two weeks after 53 years of service . . .
At the request of Chief J[ohn] H. Alderson, the commission asked the Board of Public Works to pull the old station down and salvage the lumber as soon as it is vacated so that the site may be used in connection with the department shops and training tower on adjoining property.
The account noted that, part of the old building was used as a city jail for a period, as well as that “it has been condemned a number of times as unsafe but until the new station was completed just recently there has been no other place to house Engine Co. No. 1.” Still operating more than eight decades later, the current station is Cultural Heritage Board Monument No. 156. Meanwhile, the previous site remains as part of a sprawling complex comprising the LAFD’s Bureau of Supply and Maintenance.
We’re glad to have this great photo as part of our collection and being a fantastic visual document for the history of the department, which will be 140 years old next year as a professional organization.
As noted in the post, at the turn of the 20th century the Los Angeles Fire Department operated on a $100,000 budget. By 2024, that figure had skyrocketed to $840 million. Historical records show that over the same period, the size of the LAFD force grew about thirtyfold (30 X), from 123 to roughly 3,800 personnel; while inflation rose about thirty-eight times (38 X).
If we adjust the early budget to reflect both manpower growth and inflation change, it would be translated to only about $114 million today. In other words, current spending far outpaces that projection by more than sevenfold. Some of this difference can be justified by the broader service of today’s LAFD and the costly modern equipment they operate with. I believe another major factor is firefighters today are earning far better salaries and benefits.
Yet, when it comes to the most devastating threat – wildfires, I have to say our capabilities remain very limited. Too often, our fire crews still end up circling the flames and waiting, much as they did 125 years ago.