fiery past comes alive

Fire artifacts donated by Nationwide help tell history of firefighting

Story by Amy Beth Graves | Photos by Megan Nadolski

The sound of a fire alarm more than 150 years ago meant payday for firefighters … but often only if their unit was the first to put water on the blaze. Firefighters from all over a city would race to a burning structure, sometimes trying to bump the competition off the road. Fights would break out over who had access to a source of water, and sometimes fire departments would hide fire hydrants from their competitors.

“It wasn’t unheard of for a building to burn down because the firefighters were beating each other up,” said Bill Hall, president of the Central Ohio Fire Museum & Learning Center in downtown Columbus.

Stories and fire memorabilia about the evolution of firefighting in the United States are an integral part of the museum, a 1908 restored brick engine house. Nationwide Insurance donated several of the historic artifacts, including original Currier & Ives lithographs, leather buckets, a wooden water pipe from the late 1700s, tin fire hats and leather shields that attached to helmets. The fire memorabilia was displayed at Nationwide’s headquarters for years before being donated to the museum, which opened in 2002.

“The museum is interesting for all ages – from preschool up to senior citizens,” said Hall as he walked through the museum, rattling off interesting tidbits about the history of U.S. firefighting. Stopping before a lithograph of Benjamin Franklin, Hall described how Franklin founded the first American volunteer fire company in 1736 and then went on to invent the lightning rod, which helped deter fires.

Four of the 64 fire marks on permanent loan from Nationwide are rare, said Steven Hausfield, Nationwide’s archivist. Fire marks were attached to buildings as proof of fire insurance and were a form of advertisement for insurance companies, mainly during the 1800s. Some were large and elaborate with images such as shaking hands while others were small and only had a name such as Ohio Farmers.

W.E. West, a former Nationwide executive, collected the fire marks and other memorabilia from all over the country. None of the fire marks represents Nationwide because the company didn’t start offering fire insurance until 1934, when fire marks were already a thing of the past.

A rich history
In 1855, Columbus became the fourth city in the United States to have a full-time paid fire department, Hall said. Before that time, the city required that every house and business have a 10-quart bucket that could be used whenever a fire broke out, Hall said. All males between the ages of 15 and 50 were required to go where the hand-drawn wagon was stored to help pull the machine, which could weigh up to 2,000 pounds, to the fire.

“A single fire could burn the whole town down,” Hall said, as he showed off an 1888 Button Fire Engine that could throw a stream of water 180 feet and required a minimum of eight men and maximum of 36 to operate it.

The museum’s building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, dates back to the horse-drawn fire engine age. One of the inside doors still has dents from where the horses would nervously kick while waiting to race to a fire, said George Hudak, one of the museum’s instructors. The second floor was a hayloft, and the horses lived in the 10 stalls below. At the sound of a fire alarm, the doors would spring open, and the horses would run to designated spots where their harnesses would drop from the ceiling onto them. The whole process took less than a minute, Hudak said.

Realistic safety programs
The museum also features hands-on safety programs. About 5,000 schoolchildren yearly participate in realistic situations such as how to call 911 by using a simulator, how to protect themselves from smoke while sleeping and how to prevent kitchen hazards. Older children can practice rolling off a bed and crawling along the floor as smoke enters an enclosed bedroom. Visitors can see a smoke-blackened child’s bedroom as it appears during a fire and after the fire is extinguished.

“The museum isn’t just about history — it’s about fire safety, too. Learning from the past to save lives in the future is how we describe it,” Hudak said.

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