Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department and Fire Bell of 1889

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department and that fire bell of 1889. Now, every town has a story about the people who ran toward the fire when everybody else was running the other way. Sulphur Springs is no different.

When the town was incorporated in 1870, there was no fancy department waiting in the wings. What there was, was volunteers. Organized soon after that incorporation, these men showed up with buckets and hand-drawn equipment, forming what folks called a bucket brigade.

You can picture it: a line of people passing water hand to hand, doing what they could against whatever the fire intended to do. That was the state of things for a good while. Then the city stepped up and purchased a steam fire engine in 1888, which was a considerable upgrade over a bucket and a prayer.

But here's the thing about a steam engine sitting in an engine house: somebody still has to know there's a fire. So in 1889, the city bought a five-hundred-pound brass bell and hung it in the tower of the engine house. Five hundred pounds of brass, swinging up in that tower, calling the volunteers to duty.

You could hear that bell, and when you did, you knew somebody needed help. That bell rang through the years, doing its job, until the 1930s, when a siren took over. A siren could spread the alarm over a wider area, and Sulphur Springs was a growing town by then, so the math made sense.

The bell stepped aside. Then in the 1940s, professional firemen joined the force, and you might think that was the end of the volunteer story. But the marker is careful to tell you it wasn't.

Volunteers still help battle the major fires. The bell may have gone quiet, but the spirit that hung it in that tower in 1889 never did.

What the marker says

Volunteer fire fighters, organized soon after Sulphur Springs was incorporated (1870), used a "bucket brigade" and hand-drawn equipment to control blazes before the city purchased a steam fire engine in 1888. To summon firemen, this 500-pound brass bell was bought in 1889 and hung in the tower of the engine house. It was replaced in the 1930s by a siren which spread the alarm over a wider area of the growing town. Professional firemen joined the force in the 1940s, but volunteers still help battle major fires.