From Phil Stenholm:
Another installment in the History of the Evanston Fire Department.
The Ballad of the Lucille McQuade
On January 12, 1915, a fire broke out at the Nally livery stable, located near the Greenwood Inn—once known as the “French Houseâ€â€”at the corner of Greenwood and Hinman. At the time, the Greenwood Inn was one of only two hotels in Evanston, the other being the famous Avenue House on Davis and Chicago. The fire started on the second floor of the stable while guests were dining in the hotel. Bessie Gallagher ignored police orders and ran into the burning building to retrieve her belongings before being rescued by EFD firefighters. She was later arrested for disorderly conduct and failing to obey an officer. Although the livery stable suffered $3,000 in damage, no one was injured, and the quick response of the EFD prevented the fire from spreading to the hotel.
Two weeks later, on the early morning of January 28, 1915, the EFD responded to a fire at Mrs. I.C. Danwood’s boarding house at 1925 Sherman Ave. Boarder C.C. Firman fractured both ankles when he jumped from a second-floor window to escape the flames before firefighters arrived. Upon arrival, the EFD found fire blowing through the roof, and although they successfully rescued all the boarders without injury, their efforts were delayed when a fire hydrant stem broke off during hose connection. They managed to connect to a distant hydrant, but the delay led to the total destruction of the house and its contents, costing $7,000. However, the EFD managed to save surrounding buildings using defensive tactics, including an elevated master stream from the HDA’s aerial ladder and a high-pressure stream from the Eastman “deluger.â€
On April 20, 1915, voters in Wilmette approved a $20,000 bond to purchase a motorized fire engine and build a combined police and fire station on the west side of Railroad Avenue south of Lake Ave. The Wilmette F.D. received an American-LaFrance Type 75, a triple-combination pumper with 750 GPM, which served as their first-due engine for over 25 years. The combined station operated for 50 years.
At 2 PM on Sunday, May 15, 1915, chemicals exploded in the film-developing room of the Will E. Horton camera shop in the Simpson Building on Davis Street. All three EFD engine companies responded, but the shop was gutted, and the adjacent C.H. Morgan grocery store suffered heavy smoke damage. Total damage amounted to $8,500.
At noon on Saturday, July 3, 1915, EFD Engine Co. 2 and Motor Engine Co. 1 responded to a fire on the roof of Mrs. Margaret Patterson’s home at 529 Lee St. The blaze was sparked by a wayward Fourth of July bottle rocket. Flames spread quickly, damaging the roofs of neighboring homes. Fireman William Wilbern of Engine Co. 2 suffered minor injuries when the roof collapsed on him while fighting the fire in the attic.
EFD Chief Albert Hofstetter attended the International Association of Fire Engineers Convention in Cincinnati in September 1915. He reported that while some departments still used horse-drawn steamers, no such apparatus was displayed at the event. He noted that automobile fire trucks had improved significantly since Evanston purchased its Robinson Jumbo in 1911 and predicted that horse-drawn rigs would soon be replaced nationwide.
Hofstetter also mentioned a new fully automated aerial ladder demonstrated at the convention. Built by Ahrens-Fox on a Couple Gear chassis, it combined the Dahill Air Hoist system with an 85-ft wooden ladder from Pirsch. It could be raised by one man in just 11 seconds, compared to the 1907 American-LaFrance HDA, which required two men to operate a windlass to raise its 85-ft ladder.
On Saturday night, January 8, 1916, fire destroyed Rosenberg’s Department Store at 820 Davis St. As with the Heck Hall fire two years earlier, two Chicago F.D. engines assisted. This time, both Engine Co. 102 and 110 were equipped with modern gasoline-powered pumpers. With EFD Motor Engine No. 1 (the Robinson "Jumbo") also on scene, it provided a rare opportunity to compare the performance of three automobile pumpers under real conditions.
Two thousand spectators gathered at Fountain Square as Evanston and Chicago firefighters worked well into Sunday morning. All three pumpers ran out of gas after the EFD’s 120-gallon reserve was exhausted, but more fuel was eventually found at a nearby garage. EFD Capt. Ed Johnson (Motor Engine Co. 1) was seriously injured but recovered. The fire caused $58,700 in damage, setting a new record for the second-highest loss in Evanston’s history up to that point.
The American-LaFrance horse-drawn 85-foot windlass-operated aerial ladder truck (HDA), purchased by Evanston in 1907 for $6,700, served only nine years before being demolished in a collision with an Evanston Street Railway Company streetcar at Grove and Sherman while responding to an alarm on Hinman Avenue in the early evening of September 18, 1916. Two firefighters, Dan McKimmons and Orville Wheeler, were thrown to the ground when the rig tipped over and suffered serious injuries.
The Evanston Street Railway Company claimed the crash was unavoidable and refused to take responsibility. As a result, the City of Evanston initiated legal action against the ESRC’s insurance company to cover the cost of a new HDA. Unfortunately, the city had not insured the HDA, so winning the lawsuit was the only way to fund a replacement without an emergency appropriation or voter-approved bond.
While the lawsuit was pending, the Evanston City Council decided to sell two of the four horses assigned to the HDA and lease a newer hook-and-ladder truck (without an aerial ladder) from the American LaFrance office in Chicago for $60 per month. The two-horse H&L, previously in service in Peru, Indiana, was in excellent condition and served as EFD Truck No. 1 for about six months while it was advertised for sale.
American LaFrance sold the ex-Peru rig to the Toronto Fire Department in March 1917. In exchange, the EFD leased an 1891 LaFrance/Hayes 55-ft aerial ladder truck with a three-horse hitch known as the “Lucille M. McQuade,†which had been in service for 25 years as Chattanooga Fire Department Truck No. 1. Chattanooga had recently acquired an automobile 75-ft TDA from American-LaFrance and traded in the old HDA as part of the deal. This vintage HDA was unusual because the tillerman rode below the aerial ladder!
To replace the ex-Peru H&L with the three-horse HDA, the EFD needed another horse. So the venerable 1873 Babcock double-50-gallon chemical engine was taken out of front-line service, and its horse was transferred to the HDA. Eventually, the EFD returned the Lucille McQuade to American-LaFrance, and the three horses used to pull it were retired after a new Seagrave city service ladder truck arrived in November 1917. This marked the completion of the $30,000 bond issue passed by Evanston voters in April 1917, which fully motorized the EFD.
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