Rich Tullar: Growing up in Kennewick

This story was found in our archives. It was written sometime in the 1980s about Kennewick’s history with house fires in the early 1900s. It has been retype as it was written. 

By Shirley Scott Tullar

Kennewick’s most embarrassing period has to be those early years when the town regularly ran its own fire truck off the road. Looking back it’s hard to imagine how a little frontier village of 1,500 or so normally hardworking, law-abiding citizens could run amuck at the sound of a fire whistle. But they did. Apart from crediting some weird and still undiagnosed malady, it can only be explained in terms of how dealing with fire came to color the town’s whole personality. 

To begin with, wood always was the logical building material because there was so much of it. Not right there, of course. In the beginning Kennewick was a treeless, sagebrush plain. But even before the new lumbering interests began providing timber in the 1880s and 1890s from huge forests further west and north, winter storms had been a reliable source of wood. The problem was that nature’s delivery system of winder strong enough to force logs ashore also did considerable damage along the banks of the Columbia River. So early on Kennewickians learned to build away from the water. Meanwhile, Northern Pacific railroad, always pressed for funds, was busy distributing hype-filled handbills in the east, midwest, and sometimes as far away as Europe and Scandinavia. HEAR YE! HEAR YE! The climate is equable, the market steady, rain dependable, winters mild, the land fertile and only $5.00 an acre. It was a fine way to raise cash and dispose of land grants, to say nothing of financing the continuing lawsuits which had become a regular pastime among competing railroads. Increasing numbers of settlers were arriving on every train anxious to buy parcels of land and build homesteads. The lumberyard opened about the time Kennewick got its first real estate office; by century’s end the land com was on and both businesses were thriving. 

In 1905 the city fathers were planting trees and planning wooden sidewalks: could Boardwalk be far behind? New homes were under construction and increasingly elaborate buildings were appearing. Alas, a natural accompaniment to all these wooden structures was fire. The worst ones seemed to occur at night when hoarse shouts broke into sound sleep and gave even the smallest blaze a nightmarish quality that attracted bystanders from all over town. 

Kennewick proper was about a mile inland from the Columbia, a safe distance from the spring floods that could do alarming damage. But in the early days, the only fire fighting equipment was bucket brigades with benefits limited to those living near the river. The townsfolk, all high and dry, were free to burn to the ground. And they did with some regularity. Like Kennewick’s great showplace for prospective land buyers, the Columbia Hotel. Northern Pacific built it in 1893 at the staggering cost of $30,000. It stood three stories high complete with a grand ballroom and 69 rooms. It even pumped its own water from two windmills. But in 1904 it burned to the ground because  there was no way to get enough water to extinguish the flames. The best the volunteers could do was remove the occupants. 

So it happened, from its beginnings as a little frontier town “where rail and river meet,” that much of Kennewick’s public psyche came to be concerned with fire. Long after, when efficient and sophisticated equipment had been acquired, a certain weariness still clouded the eyes of old timers when they spoke of early-day fires. 

Until after 1906 when ten fire hydrants were installed to accommodate the two square blocks of downtown Kennewick, the only real help came from neighbors hurrying in to remove a building’s contents. At the first cry of “fire,” every available hand rushed to the scene. The line of possessions piled out of harm’s way, with neighbors folding and rearranging, came to be as familiar a sight as that of fire equipment. Joe Siegfried still remembers a blaze out in the Garden Tract north of town where neighbors were able to get everything out, including the water heater, before the house was reduced to ashes. At least there would be furniture to put into a new home and hot water for a bath. So over time the practice of dashing off to fires to help snatch furnishings from the flames gained momentum. 

For years before the acquisition of the first motorized fire truck, Kennewick’s most elaborate piece of equipment was a one-horse hose cart that rattled and clanked along telling anyone who hadn’t heard the whistle that a fire was underway. Actually, there were two hose carts, both acquired in 1907 when the volunteer fire department was organized. The other cart also was supplied with hoses and ladders but it was simply pushed around the downtown area by the fireboys, as the volunteers were called, and its hoses connected to the nearest hydrant. 

The cart was kept at the firehouse, but the horse was down the street at the livery stable. Whenever word came that the horse wagon was needed, the volunteer on duty first had to blow the whistle to summon the other fireboys. Then he had to race down to the livery stable to harness the hose. In summer and fall this was no problem. Even in spring when rain sometimes transformed the streets into a sea of mud it was negotiable. But in the chill of winter when winds off the Columbia River could dip temperatures to 20 below, being a volunteer fireman became a far different matter. 

For one thing, when the thermometer dropped substantially below freezing as often happened in the winter, the hydrants froze and sometimes stayed frozen which meant the water supply could be cut off until the weather warmed. In those instances the volunteers could do little but evacuate inhabitants and watch the hapless structure burn. But even in good weather, reduced water pressure was a continuing problem. Many fires did considerable damage despite having men and equipment at hand simply because water pressure in the hydrants was so consistently low. 

By 1913 the city fathers were able to install all parts of the fire department under one roof with room enough to string the hoses out to dry, to say nothing of providing comfortable quarters for the single fireboys. But the crowing feature was to be the new whistle duly installed in 1916. 

As it turned out, its tones were so respectable that no one seemed able to hear it and soon townsfolk were referring to the “whispering whistle.” Dr Crosby went so far as to complain to The Courier that he couldn’t hear it over the whine of Dr Brogunier’s dental drill next door. But then those two had been at loggerheads ever since Dr Crosby, the town’s lothario, had made an impolitic suggestion to Mrs Brogunier. So no one paid much attention.

In time, the whispering whistle was replaced by an ear-deafening siren that at first seemed capable of waking the dead. Indeed, on those occasions when a fire interrupted a Sunday church sermon, even the meekest of clergymen would comment from the pulpit on the overkill of the new alarm. But then one night in 1925 the siren went on the blink and refused to make a sound; so the Chief himself had to ride around town to waken his volunteers and get them to a fire at four o’clock in the morning. It always seemed to be something. 

The first motorized fire truck was acquired in the early 1920s, shortly after the boys came home from France following World War I. It gave the town special pride and a good deal of comfort. On sunny days the hood shone stunningly just inside the fire house door. Kids often stood there admiring its great square shape while watching their own reflections in the brass trim that was  polished to fare-thee-well. 

If man’s fascination with fire is as old as time, Kennewickians proved the truth of it. A single blast of the whistle, which indicated that the fire was somewhere in town, was enough to send dozens of heads popping out of doors and windows in search of the telltale column of smoke. Drawn by an ancient obsession with the tremendous destructive force of a blaze, in minutes residents would continue the old tradition converging to offer whatever help was needed and to watch the sometimes awesome specter of a home in peril.

Three blasts of the whistle meant the fire was in the Garden Tract. Children who lived out there thought nothing of walking the three miles or so to school in town and back every day. But even in the early days many adults seemed to think it too far for a walk to a fire and saddling a horse too much bother. After all, a wood frame bungalow could burn to the ground in fifteen minutes. Anyway there would be neighbors nearby able to help get the furniture and belongings out. But with the coming of the automobile – Kennewick’s first Model T Ford arrived in 1914 — all that changed and the whole area was now accessible. 

At first, the only thought was of getting to the fire as quickly as possible, ostensibly to locate the blaze and help the afflicted family. It was a continuation of an honored Kennewick tradition. But as time went on, getting to the fire on time deteriorated into a race to see who could get there first.   

Merchants, momentarily freed of customers when the familiar one, two or three blasts of fire the alarm occurred, would hastily put a WILL RETURN IN 30 MINUTES sign in the window and join the parade. Businessmen often did the same, waving down a friendly car for a ride. Others with vehicles available quickie summoned neighbors and cronies and headed for the fire. Whenever the whistle sounded, it seemed that in just minutes the whole town would empty to join the fire parade.

The problem with all this was that other than Main street downtown, all roads were just barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Furthermore, the town budget never had quite stretched far enough for pavement, or tarmac, or anything other than an occasional grading. By the time the withering heat of sumer had evaporated every last suggestion of moisture, the months of farming and delivery wagons coupled with bicycles and small boys had reduced the top layers to a fine, powdery silt, most roads around Kennewick had become a minor dust bowl waiting to happen. 

Within minutes of a soft whistle blast, the roads would be assaulted by Chalmers, Maxwells, Franklins and a profusion of Model T Fords, their great spoked wheels with narrow rubber tires transforming the road surface into clouds of yellow dust. As each car joined the procession, the dust grew thicker, gradually rising well above the tops of the automobiles and finally obscuring altogether the rising column of smoke towards which all were heading.

And at the rear of all this confusion, unable to pass, with clanging fire bell and horn adding to the din, came the fire wagon.

In the aftermath of a fire, contrition would reign. Everyone agreed that the road should not be blocked. They pointed to the obvious delays in extinguishing the fires, how structures could otherwise have been saved. RESIDENTS ARE WARNED AGAINST IMPEDING FIRE SERVICE, intoned The Columbia Courier. Fire Chiefs made elaborate, front-page explanations of the dangers. The Town Constable threatened dire punishments. The Mayor made pronouncements. But each time the fire whistle blew, the town emptied and the race was on again.

Invariably, before many minutes the fire truck would be forced to stop at the side of the road simply because the Chief could no longer see through the dust or maneuver around the jam of automobiles. Drivers of smaller vehicles like the racy new Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles, who could dodge in and out between cars, often got a quick glance inside the fire truck as they passed it. Invariably they looked away sheepishly.

There would sit the Chief, suddenly ruddy of complexion, popeyed with veins standing out on his forehead, fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he mumbled unspeakable epitaphs at the traffic and dust clouds blocking his way.

I wish I could say there was a final quick solution to this dilemma and that the fire brigade won. But it did not. In fact the races only got worse. A continuing replay, fire traffic remained impenetrable both to the volunteers and the Town Constable well into the 1930s.

In time, the roads got paved which reduced the dust and improved visibility. And very gradually more sophisticated entertainment gained the upper hand. The truth is, radio did as much for Kennewick’s fire cum traffic suppression as anything. A few early day soap operas and the odd melodrama went a long way toward diverting the town’s attention. They also helped restore the Chief’s sanity to say nothing of saving a surprising number of homes from a blazing end. As far as we know, Kennewick is the only town in the country with homes rescued from a fiery finale by “Myrt and Marge,” and “One Man’s Family.”

Today Kennewick is a respectable city of more than 35,000 with far safer structures and well-enforced fire codes. Only small boys and dogs run after its fire trucks any more. But likely as not old-timers like Joe Siegfried and Art Carpenter, chuckling wickedly until the ears come, will tell you it hasn’t always been that way.