Tales from the 1950s Empire Fire Department
Empire’s 1917 Seagrave. Trying to start “the old girl”. Photo courtesy of Empire Area Museum
By Doug Manning
Sun contributor
Back in the late 1950’s the Empire Volunteer Fire Department was called to fight a fire at the township hall on Front Street. The fire station at that time was located kitty-corner across the street. A siren mounted at the fire station blared loudly. A loosely defined group of volunteer firefighters assembled quickly. Two ancient (circa 1917-1919) Seagrave fire trucks were driven out into the street. The old trucks had wooden wheels with rubber tires that were chain-driven. The trucks had been purchased from Saginaw Township, complete with old, worn-out cotton fire hoses.
I was seven or eight years old at the time. My family lived on Front Street in what became the Glen Lake Library (later we moved down a few houses and across the street). The township hall fire stands out in my mind as a young boy caught up in the big excitement.
Men scurried in every which direction. Cars were arriving and more men were getting out and running to help in any way they could. It was late afternoon or early evening and the siren called many who had just returned home from work. I still remember the phone number for the fire department, 326-2701. When a call came in on that number, it rang a constant ring at five different locations to alert the volunteers. Mark Deering was the Fire Chief. Fred Taghon had a line at his home, and at his gas station on the corner. Mike Taghon had a fire line at his auto shop across the street from the gas station. I think Frank Fisher also had a fire line at his home.
Smoke was pouring out of our community’s beloved gathering place! The volunteers pulled the 2.5-inch cotton hoses off the trucks and worked to attach them to the fire hydrant in front of Norm Welch’s house. There was some confusion as to how to wrench them tightly to the hydrant. I was standing back from the action on Norm’s lawn near the house.
As the fire hoses were connected to the hydrant, another wrench was produced to open the large gate valve. Water surged out, swelling the flattened cotton hoses. Immediately new problems were identified. As the old hoses snaked to life, they looked more like garden sprinklers. They were full of holes! Some holes were small and simply leaked into puddles on the ground. Other holes were larger, creating absolute geysers of gushing water—some 30 feet into the air!
A number of men assembled at the nozzle end, expecting to control and direct the high-volume flow anticipated. Others were scattered along the length of the swollen line to assist with control. Many of the men in the mid-section took off running as the leaks and geysers soaked and pummeled them with the water escaping uselessly en route to the nozzle. The men on the end awaited the incredible pressure but it never came. Only a small stream emitted that could only be directed 20-30 feet before falling to the ground; not nearly what was desired to spray the entire building. A second hose was tried with the same disappointing result.
I don’t recall by what means the fire was eventually brought under control, but the township hall was saved! The sorry display was enough to rally the Empire Township taxpayers to step up and authorize the expenditure to purchase a new fire truck for future emergencies in the township and village.
The Village Council at that time included, among others, Chet Salisbury, who owned the hardware store at the west end of Front Street; Frank Fisher, a civil engineer who worked either at the Air Force Base or a Traverse City engineering firm; Mark Deering, owner of Deering’s Market (grocery store). Mark owned the store and the Friendly Tavern next door, with his brother Warren. They also owned cherry and apple orchards in the area. Al Roen, another local orchard owner rounded out the board. A woman, perhaps Ida Jadditz, was secretary and recorded the minutes.
Bids were requested and apparently the best offer was an American LaFrance truck. Somehow, the board overrode the low bid and instead approved the purchase of a 1958 Ford fire truck (” Buy Local” was important even back then).
The new fire truck arrived in August to great fanfare. The proud firefighters drove it around the village with the siren howling. They soaked spectators with their new leak-free rubber hoses, showing off their new ability to spray water while underway from an onboard reservoir, a great advantage for fighting grass fires.
Apparently, there was new enthusiasm for belonging to the fire department as a volunteer. Also, with the arrival of the new truck, everyone realized that they ought to train to learn how to run the new state-of-the-art rig. A training day was set for a Saturday afternoon in August at the Empire Village Park on Lake Michigan. In those days, the park was never crowded, only used by village families (except the Fourth of July when a large picnic was hosted by local Catholic and Methodist churches—but that’s another story…).
On the appointed day a huge number of local men showed up at the beach. The new truck was driven out from the fire station and, with sirens going and hoses spraying spectators, made a loop through town and headed down to the beach to start the training in earnest.
The new truck had a feature to take on water from a lake or farm pond. Using a small pump on the front of the truck, it could suck up 500 gallons of water. A second pump (or perhaps a reconfiguration of the first pump) allowed the water to then be discharged under high pressure through various ports and hoses. The truck had a standard transmission with a chain drive with dual back wheels, an enclosed cab, and a muffler—all improvements over the old Seagraves rigs that were so loud you had to shout to hear each other. Also, importantly, the new truck was fitted with all new rubber hoses!
As a young boy, I was excited and curious to see what was going on. I rode my bike down to the beach and observed the training for a while. The day was warm but I was not to go in swimming without my parent’s permission. After a time, I rode my bike back up from the lake and cruised around town.
It was late afternoon when Lottie Swansbey, who operated the telephone switchboard (where the Secret Garden sits today), received a call from Beaver Edwards down at Otter Creek, about 4 miles south of Empire. Some campers or sunbathers had apparently started a fire near the mouth of the creek and hot embers had blown into the adjacent bushes, igniting them. The brush fire was growing and headed towards Beaver’s house which sat on a knoll about a hundred yards from the creek. (Beaver Edwards made his money by designing plastic prosthetic devices and artificial limbs during WWII.)
Stan Dumbrowski was a civil engineer working at the young and growing Empire Air Force Station, a Cold War radar installation, later turned over to the FAA for commercial navigation. Stan happened to be at the telephone exchange chatting with Lottie and her husband Garfield when the call came in about the Otter Creek fire. Stan had just come from the beach and was reflecting on the rather loose drinking by the volunteers during the training exercise.
Down at the beach, a driver had backed the new truck down the boat ramp and inadvertently rolled off of the steel deck and into the sand. Now the heavy truck was listing heavily to starboard (as were many of the drinking volunteer firefighters). The only tow-truck around was Taghon’s little two passenger Willey’s Jeep, obviously insufficient to pull the heavy fire truck back onto the steel ramp. Someone suggested getting one or two large orchard tractors and hooking them to the fire truck to pull it out.
Stan and Lottie determined the best course of action to fight the Otter Creek Fire was to collect up the more sober firefighters from the beach and get them going on the old 1919 Seagraves fire truck. Stan drove his station wagon to the beach and found Fred Taghon, well trained in the old equipment; Hank Brunet, home on leave from the Coast Guard; and Charlie Payment, retired Coast Guard.
The 1919 Seagraves firetruck was an engineering marvel for its day. There was polished chrome and brass everywhere. It had an open cab with a wide leather bench seat (heavily padded), a brass throttle and clutch lever about five feet long, and a huge beveled glass windscreen trimmed in heavy brass. It had beautiful wooden spoked wheels with big inflated rubber tires. A huge chain (several inches wide) connected the rear axle to the engine’s transmission.
Fred Taghon was driving with Hank Brunet riding shotgun and Charlie Payment was standing on the rear deck as they headed off to fight the Otter Creek fire. Charlie had a full-length hand rail that ran from his feet up over his head. Swinging on this handrail, he could look up the side of the truck as it rode along. Several automobiles with additional firefighters followed along as the old Seagraves headed out of town, turning south on M-22 towards Otter Creek.
Stan Dumbrowski returned to Lottie at the switchboard to assist with any further communication. About 15 minutes after the fire truck left Empire another phone call came in to the switchboard. It was Beaver Edwards, asking when the firefighters were going to arrive—the fire was growing closer! Lottie advised that they should be arriving anytime, thinking the truck would have made the short trip by now.
After a few minutes the line rang again from Beavers. This time it was one of the firefighters. He quickly summarized a difficult situation. On the way down the road to Otter Creek the main drive chain on the fire truck had failed! The old Seagraves truck had just started down the ¾ mile-long winding hill to the mouth of Otter Creek. Without the drive chain the fire truck had no power and no brakes!
Fred Taghon did his best to keep the rig on the road, but there was too much speed to navigate the last curve at the bottom of the hill. The truck went off the road and rolled, throwing those onboard into the woods. Fred and Hank seemed to be OK, just badly shaken up. Charlie on the other hand, who had been holding on at the back of the rig, was thrown into a tree, hitting his head. He was unresponsive and appeared to be dead.
The Empire Air Force Station had a new ambulance and Stan Dumbrowski knew this. He had Lottie call them for assistance, saving valuable time, instead of calling out the ambulance from Martinson’s Funeral Home in Traverse City. The Air Force crew was quickly on the scene.
Upon the arrival of the Air Force, the gathered group of Empire firefighters were all smiling and happy. Charlie had apparently just been knocked unconscious. He was now awake and seemed unharmed except for a bad headache. He spent the next two days in Munson Hospital. Afterwards he would joke that it was a good thing he hit that tree with his head. Otherwise he might have been badly hurt!
With the Empire fire truck and crew out of commission, the Honor fire department was called and arrived safely to the fire in time to extinguish it and save Beaver’s home. The new Ford firetruck was later towed from the lake and served the community for many years after.
Doug Manning, an avid outdoorsman, hunter, sailor and connoisseur of fine colas, passed away on June 9. A realtor with a big personality and tremendous sense of humor, Manning and friend Michelle Stryker found an anchor off Empire beach in 1977 that prompted the town to celebrate its annual Anchor Day Festival. Manning was a regular at the Leelanau Coffee Roasters and an excellent storyteller.
