History

Port Townsend is Jefferson County’s only incorporated city. It is known as “Washington’s Victorian Seaport.” It’s Victorian style of architecture of the houses and commercial buildings erected during the 1800’s remain the City’s trademark.

A portion of the city has been designated a National Historic District.

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, exploring what is now Puget Sound. Captain Vancouver named what he called a “safe and capacious harbor, Port Townshend” – in honor of his friend, the Marquis of Townshend.

In 1851, Alfred Plummer and Charles Bachelder arrived in Port Townsend and built a log cabin, thus establishing Port Townsend’s foundation, predating Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia, but not the Native Americans who had lived here for untold centuries.

The Port Townsend Fire Department had its beginnings prior to the 1890’s, but its earliest official records begin in 1889, although we can now trace the department back to 1872.

“Key City (Enterprise) Hose Company No. 1” began operation in a wooden station house on the back of a downtown brewery between Madison and Monroe Streets.

Port Townsend’s first Fire Chief was D.H. Hill, and his legion of volunteers were equipped with a horse-drawn Silsby hose cart.

It was soon apparent that the fire department was in need of two things: an engine house for their new $900 chemical engine, and a method of alerting Hill and his “fire boys” to the alarm of a fire. At the suggestion of Hill’s son N.D. Hill, these were combined in a bell tower and station structure that was built on a bluff at the intersection of Tyler and Jefferson Streets.

This “top of the bluff” location enabled the fire department to avoid scaling the steep grades each time there was an alarm in the “Uptown” district of the rapidly growing city.

The January 1, 1890, issue of the “The Morning Leader” newspaper reported:

“The contract has been let for a new engine house for the chemical [sic] engine and bell-tower on Tyler and Jefferson Streets. The bell tower will be 50 feet high, and it is presumed by the thinking part of the community that an electric light will be suspended from the lofty superstructure which being on the hill will shine to splendid advantage.”

The unique and dynamic structure, at the time it was built, could have hardly been considered “architecture,” for the only condescension to fashion was the use of decorative brackets at the corners of the roof. But it was functional!! The batter of the walls and superstructure gave a pyramidal profile to the structure. Though undoubtedly done as a bracing device to counteract the strong winds, it endowed the little tower with the structural honesty and engaging eccentricity far removed from the almost self-conscious, eclectically decorated, formal architecture of that era.

This is the only bell tower of its kind in the United States today, and although no longer in service, it is nonetheless functional, and still keeps watch over the city. An annual tribute ceremony consisting of a bell ringing at noon is conducted yearly for one week by the Jefferson County Historical Society, which is always accepting donations for the structural preservation and maintenance necessary to maintain the structure.

“Key City Hose Company No. 2” was established in 1892, and operated from an “uptown” residence at the corner of Garfield and Harrison Streets. George Lake was the “driver” of the station’s hose cart that was hand-drawn by the volunteers. As many as ten men could pull the cart, and one man was quoted as saying that he “never ran so fast in his life” as the time he helped pull the hose cart to a fire!

In October of 1889, the American Telegraph Company was given authority to erect poles and string wires, the poles to be equipped with boxes containing signaling devices for the transmission of fire alarms.

A new City Hall was dedicated on July 4, 1892. Included as part of the structure was a new fire station, complete with the traditional brass pole.

The new station was soon equipped with an American steam fire engine. This apparatus was horse-drawn and capable of pumping 1,500 gallons of water per minute.

The Silsby hose cart was then housed in the newly completed Bell Tower “station.” Hose Company No. 2 remained at its uptown residential location.

In 1889, improvements to the City’s fire alarm system were made. This equipment shows the very early use of electricity in communication. One of the units on display at the current firehouse was granted a patent in 1868, and all equipment was designed prior to the invention of the electric motor, light, telephone, or radio. At the time this equipment was developed, the only practical use of electricity was the telegraph, where the human hand used a telegraph key to send Morse code. Fire telegraphic alarms represent an early attempt to automate this process.

Gamewell, Co. “Excelsior” model street-side fire alarm boxes were installed at strategic public access locations throughout the City, and by 1933, twenty-one such boxes were in service. Next to the box was a small case with a glass front. When a fire was detected, one would break the glass and remove a key to open the box. Inside the box was a small lever one pulled, which lifted an iron weight. This weight furnished the energy that turned a number of gears. The gears turned a small cog with raised points acting as a telegraph key sending out a coded signal down the wire to the downtown firehouse.

A Gamewell Co. “indicator unit” and “code-wheel transmitter” was also installed in the downtown firehouse. Once an alarm box signal was received, the indicator box used the signal in different ways. First, it rang the attached 14-inch brass bell in a timed pattern. Second, this signal was decoded and the specific alarm box number was displayed clearly on the front of the indicator unit. Lastly, the decoded signal was sent to a “Paper Tape” unit to record the code number. Firefighters arriving at the fire hall after the bell had stopped, only had to look at the indicator, check the number, and rush off to the location of the fire.

Without telephone or radio to inform the volunteer firefighters of the location of the fire, only the firefighters at the fire station knew of the location. The fire bell at the Bell Tower was thus used to sound the alarm all over town.

Using the number on the indicator, a Bell Ringer unit was used to transmit to the Bell Tower the coded location of the pull-box alarm. Selecting one of dozens of coin-shaped gears, each numbered corresponding to the alarm box numbers, and placing the gear in the bell ringer unit mechanism accomplished this. One would then select the number of times the bell ringer should cycle the coded signal, that is, whether it be a one, two, or three alarm fire.

Because this equipment was very primitive, wires having poor insulation, and that gears would often stick, a strange number sequence required some form of backup alarm verification. A Paper Tape unit (mechanical paper punch device) was used to record the decoded signal from the indicator unit.

Email:            asstfirechief@ci.port-townsend.