Before Brookfield had its first motorized fire engine, the four cylinder “Old International,” back in 1916, fire protection was extremely primitive. The first true pieces of fire equipment used here were two large fire extinguishers on wheels, the two-wheel No. 6 Champion Chemical Fire Engines bought around 1902 from the Indianapolis Fire Extinguishing Company.
In May, 1903, a special committee recommended the purchase of two hose carts, which would allow for lengths of fire hose to be transported throughout the village, still named Grossdale. Though two carts were ordered at a cost of not more than $108 each, only one was delivered.
The LaFrance Fire Engine Company offered to sell the village, in March, 1905, “Four No. 3 Two Wheel Hand Hose Carts, and a six gallon standard Babcock Fire Extinguisher.”
The cost was to have been $510, but LaFrance “offered to accept as full payment” the two “Champion Chemical Fire Engines.”
So the village of Grossdale now had five hose carts, and stored them at five different sites, being local barns, coach houses or specially constructed wooden sheds.
Fire Company No. 1 was located in the village hall, at the corner of Brookfield and Forest avenues. Company No. 2 was located in the 3300 block of Grand Boulevard. Company No. 3 was near the corner of Rochester and Vernon avenues.
Company No. 4 was at Rochester Avenue and DuBois Boulevard, behind the home of the reigning Village President John W. Gross. Company No. 5 operated from two different locations, behind O.V. Grant’s Grocery Store at 8420 Brookfield Ave., and then from a wooden shed at the back of fireman Albert Fox’s home at 3601 Hollywood Ave.
But what good were all the hose carts in the world, unless you had some water to fill them with? In 1904, fire hydrants and their connecting water mains had been installed in the village for the first time. By January 1905, the system was ready for use, even though the local volunteers, still having only one hose cart, would have had to deal with the problem of frozen hydrants.
Anyone could volunteer once the emergency calls came. Early settler Joseph N. Vasey recalled the time Village President John Gross and the entire village board joined “to pull a hand-hose cart in two feet of snow [to] put out a fire.”
Another way the cart could get to a fire was by attaching its thick rope to horses, which sometimes had to be done when the hose carts became mired in snow, mud or a deep pothole.
Each cart contained two lengths of standard 2.5-inch hose, coiled around a reel with handles. The hose was pulled straight out the back of the cart, over a spinnable black-painted roller, and then the hose was attached directly to a hydrant. Whatever the water pressure was, that was what came out of the brass hose nozzle. There was no way to increase the pressure.
As the village acquired more modern fire apparatus, including the venerable and still running 1924 Ahrens-Fox engine, the hose carts fell out of use, and by 1930, at least one of them was still being stored at the fire station at 3839 Prairie Ave. Over the years, pieces of the original carts were used to repair one last relic of the olden days.
Sometime prior to 1950, the old hose cart was spruced up, even with an identifying sign. On Dec. 9, 1949, the fire department responded to a call about a choking child. Firemen Walter Bruns and Frank Hawes administered the inhalator, and saved the life of young Charles Robert Vlk, age 4.
The firemen were commended with a plaque by the child’s parents, and a photo and story about it appeared in the Brookfield Enterprise newspaper on Jan. 12, 1950. For the photo, the child was seated on the red-painted toolbox, mounted on the front of the one remaining hose cart. His rescuers stood smiling down on him, one man on each side of the cart.
In 1961, Fire Station No. 2 on Broadway Avenue was opened, serving the part of the village north of the railroad tracks. In time, the last hose cart was transferred here, and was available for viewing until 1989.
It was on May 12, while visiting the Broadway Fire Station that I took some photographs of it, and was asked if the Brookfield Historical Society would like it to have it to display in their museum, on a “permanent loan” basis, as it was still village property.
The B.H.S. decided to accept the hose cart, and I was to arrange some way of transporting it from the Broadway fire station to the museum. On June 5, 1989, John Zdenek, B.H.S. stationmaster, and I, took possession of the hose cart, pulling it gently out of the Broadway fire station. The cart seemed to be holding up pretty well, although after a short while, the wooden wheel spokes “crick-cricked” enough to make us wonder if the cart would make it.
Along the way, a few people sitting on their porches stared out at this vision from Brookfield’s long-ago past. Some people called out “Where ya goin’? To a fire?” and “What’s that thing?”
We explained, and were soon back on our way.
As we pulled the hose cart east onto Grant Avenue, the left wheel began to come off. After an inspection was made, it was discovered that a common nail, acting as a cotter pin, had broken. Zdenek went to the museum, only a few blocks away, to bring back another nail. He brought back six of varying sizes, and one fit perfectly. The rest of the journey proceeded without further trouble.
In Feb. 1991, I got some tools together and took apart the 462-pound hose cart, and put it back together a day later. I weighed everything and took notes, compiling statistics that I knew I might never again be able to do once it was reassembled.
The hose cart’s wooden wheels (covered in iron straps) are 60-inches (five feet) in diameter. For some odd reason, the left wheel (seen from the front of the cart) weighs 66 lbs., while the right wheel weighs 69 lbs.
The hose on the cart measures approximately 80 feet, in two lengths, and weighs a little over 90 lbs. Dates stamped on the hose’s metal connections list 1925 and 1932 (both) as trademark and registration dates. So it is not 1905 hose.
The fire ax weighs 6 pounds. The nozzle assembly weighs 8 pounds. The red glass signal lamps are 4 pounds. each. The red-painted tool box weighs 9 pounds.
But my work still wasn’t completely done. I cleaned the cart up even more, oiled all its moving parts, and shined the brass until it gleamed like 24 carat gold.
The 1905 hose cart display was set up in the middle of the waiting room, and was the hit of the museum season. Children loved to touch the rough, thick rope, and to slide their fingers along on the golden brass. It may have been old, but it was something new to them.
In late 1992, the wooden passenger benches were brought back inside the Station Museum, and the display was moved over into a corner, where it rests today.
Though no longer the centerpiece that it once was, it still draws the interest of visitors, as a century old remembrance of the simpler, and, yes, less effective way fires were put out, back in the village’s olden days.