This didn't appear on any website, so I'll post it here. Still, I don't like posting my articles, but this one is for a good cause.... KJP

 

Fire history safe with museum

Dec. 1, 2005

By KEN PRENDERGAST

Staff Writer

 

It took two people to peel back the large plastic sheets protecting a series of blocks, each roughly 8 feet tall. As the sheets were removed, clouds of plaster billowed upward. But it revealed countless banks of meters, levers and indicators. Many of the components were made of brass, and still shined after 77 years.

The Gamewell Alarm System is the centerpiece of the Western Reserve Fire Museum and Education Center, taking shape in the Cleveland Fire Department's Alarm Office and Dispatch Center. The CFD's alarm system, the only one of its kind in any fire museum in the U.S., went into operation two years after the building was built in 1926. It is located at the eastern end of the Lorain-Carnegie Hope Memorial Bridge, and across Ontario Street from Jacobs Field in downtown Cleveland.

All 1,200 of Cleveland's red pull-box alarms, often mounted on utility poles throughout the city, were routed into the building using telegraphs. The aging system continued operating until 1999, when it was replaced by a modern computer dispatching center at another location.

Also in the building was Fire Station No. 28, complete with crew quarters, fire engine bays and those famous fire poles between them that firefighters slid down. A victim of city budget cuts in 1981, the fire station was closed. After the dispatching facility was shut down 20 years later, the 20,000-square-foot building became available.

Dan Hayden, executive director of the fire museum, and who worked in the building as a lieutenant dispatcher from 1995-99,

said the building's multiple functions made it a perfect candidate for the new museum. Cleveland has no museum dedicated to the history of fire fighting.

"It's a great old building," he said. "We're real excited about it" becoming a museum.

Western Reserve Fire Museum and Education Center is a nonprofit organization begun in 1992 by the Western Reserve

Fire Buffs. They hosted a gathering of current and retired firefighters, as well as others interested in Greater Cleveland's fire-fighting history. Today, the organization has 800 members.

"They said 'let's start a museum and start saving some of Cleveland's history.'" Hayden said.

Since then, more than $530,000 has been raised toward the $3 million cost of renovating the building, restoring artifacts and improving the surrounding area into a pedestrian-friendly historic district.

However, the construction of a new Interstate 90 bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley could squeeze out a neighboring, active fire station, as well as the planned historic district. Not threatened is the 1926 building, which the museum organization is leasing from the city for $1 per year.

Scott Carpenter, museum project manager, said renovation work is proceeding in phases. The first floor, including the apparatus bays, should be restored next year. The roof has been replaced and repairs have been made to the sandstone exterior.

"These things will help us build credibility with funders," Carpenter said. He is a museum designer by profession. His resume includes similar projects for the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, and at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron.

Numerous fire departments in 11 Northeast Ohio counties have been or will be approached to help provide funding, artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, old equipment and documents to the museum. More than 80 percent of CFD employees contribute $60,000 per year to the museum through a payroll deduction program.

The museum organization also is producing a book on notable Cleveland fires and other related history, to raise funds for the museum. For more information, visit their Web site at www.wrfmc.com or call (216) 664-6312.

Already, an extensive collection of uniforms, signs and equipment is on hand, awaiting cleaning, preservation or restoration by volunteers. But more artifacts and volunteers are needed, Carpenter noted. His goal ultimately is to have 15-20 volunteers available on a weekly basis, or about three to four each day, to provide tours of the building and its displays, as well as to provide education.

The CFD has agreed to operate its public safety education programs out of the museum building — hence the "education center" wording at the end of the museum's name. Another reason is that the museum will have library, where historical records can be reviewed. The museum has boxes filled with firefighter duty journals that date back to the 1870s, showing which firefighters headed out on

various emergency calls.

"These (journals) had to be saved for public records. People can look through these and do research about their father or grandfather," said Hayden.

Recently, a woman came to the museum and informed Hayden that her father was a firefighter, but had died of pneumonia in the 1960s when she was just two years old.

"She didn't remember him," Hayden said. "But, she found a duty journal with his name in it and showed what he did (as a

firefighter). You could see the tears in her eyes."

Those involved with the Western Reserve Fire Museum and Education Center hope to have that kind of impact on more people. Starting next year, when the first sections of the building open to the public, it just might.

 

END

Plans for Cleveland fire museum under way

Organization hopes to turn old Cleveland firehouse into educational center

Monday, February 04, 2008

Brian Albrecht

 

When a building burns, the smell of blaze-blackened wood, metal and plastic is a mean, acrid odor that, once experienced, is rarely forgotten.

 

So perhaps it shouldn't be a shock when a whiff of that distinctive scent suddenly drifted from nowhere during a recent visit to the future home of the Western Reserve Fire Museum and Education Center.

 

 

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

 

[email protected], 216-999-4853

 

Great another family friend place to visit.  :clap: