A Storied Past

On May 25, 1843, a fire started at the Washington Hall Hotel, located on the northeast corner of South Monroe and St. Augustine streets. For three hours, the fire blazed, consuming over 90 structures and decimating Tallahassee’s downtown business district.

Fortunately, no one was killed. But, “the merchants had no time to take anything out of their stores with them,” said Maurice Majszak, Tallahassee Fire Department (TFD) historian. “They had to run to get away from the fire.”

The fire reached Park Avenue and eventually burned out. To prevent something like this from happening again, the city created a “fire district.”

“You couldn’t build anything combustible there,” said Majszak. “The walls had to be brick or stone or something like that … and the roofs had to be slate, tile or zinc.”

Even with volunteers, fires continued to ravage parts of the city. The Morgan Hotel, located on the west side of Adams Street between Pensacola and Lafayette streets, was destroyed by fire in 1886. Photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Additionally, 16-foot alleyways were constructed, dividing each of the district’s city blocks in half. According to Majszak, the remnants of some of these alleys can still be found today on College Ave., between Adams and Monroe streets, and Monroe and Calhoun.

So, the city had a fire prevention plan, but what about a fire department? Well, that wouldn’t come for another 20-plus years.

“Firefighting was a community effort ranging from ‘bucket brigades’ to hand and horse-drawn wagons,” until 1868 when the first volunteer firefighting company was established in the city, TFD reported.

Volunteer companies operated on and off from 1868 to the early 1900s, Majszak said, which was strange, considering that the Florida Legislature created a position for a Tallahassee fire chief in 1870.

“We had a fire chief but no fire company,” he said.

Firemen at the Tallahassee volunteer fire company station, 1915, from left: Malcolm D. McCoy Sr. with horses Jake and Dick, Pinkney Coe with Tom and Jerry, and Joel Coe with Jack. Photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

But even with volunteers, fires continued to ravage parts of the city. In January 1879, St. John’s Episcopal Church burned to the ground, as did the Leon and Morgan hotels in 1885 and 1886, respectively. People called for an organized fire company in 1882 after multiple two-story buildings burned down in Tallahassee’s downtown area. Still, things stayed more or less the same until the 1890s — that’s when the city began testing fire hydrants and installed a fire bell.

“Along with the bell, the city divided up the city into fire districts, not for money but for reporting fires,” Majszak said. “And on the corner (of each district), they put these little red, manual pull boxes that somebody could open and pull a lever to send a signal” to a telephone office.

A ticker tape machine would punch out the number of the box — say, 17 for Fire District 17 — and an operator would set some gears to ring the bell.

“So, if the fire was in District 17, the bell would make one long ring then seven short ones,” so the volunteer firefighters knew where to go, Majszak explained.

The city added three additional bells in 1897, and in 1902, it established the Tallahassee Volunteer Fire Company, the Capital City’s first organized fire company. Then, in 1930, its name changed to the Tallahassee Fire Department. And the rest, as they say, is history.

A Gathering of Friends

Tallahassee Fire Department retirees gather for luncheons twice a year to catch up and reminisce. Photo courtesy of Maurice Majszak

Since as early as 1997, Tallahassee Fire Department (TFD) retirees have made efforts to regularly maintain contact and meet as a group in the form of luncheons. The first of these events consisted of only 12–15 people, but as time went on and word spread, the luncheons grew larger. Now, anywhere from 30–60 retirees and their families combine and reminisce at the biannual gathering.

“The luncheon itself is pretty special,” wrote Maurice Majszak. “Each retiree brings a dish for everyone to share. I have attended every retiree luncheon since I retired in 2011 and have never lacked a full stomach.

“To see the retirees, brothers and sisters, and their families’ faces when they see each other again is magical and precious,” he continued. “Listening to their stories of fires and the equipment that they had to work with makes one wonder how they survived and just how much these men and women depended on each other and meant to each other.”

The next retiree luncheon will occur on the second Saturday of October. For more information about TFD and its history, visit TalGov.com/publicsafety/tfd.