East Side Fire Tower also housed City Hall. The old City Hall was built in 1911.
Fire is nothing new. It was here before us and it will be here long after we are gone. Taming fire let our ancestors survive and eventually move out of their caves.
Locally the original Oregon inhabitants, the Kalapuya, used fire to manage their lands. When the first white settlers entered the Willamette Valley, they marveled at the openness of the oak savannas and wet and dry prairies. It looked much different from what we know now.
The Kalapuya used controlled burns every fall to manage the land with foodstuffs in mind. The white oak provided a rich protein source with its acorns. The camas fields were important as was the native tarweed. Fire helped all of those food sources flourish and it also kept down the undergrowth and cleared out the non-helpful species of brush and weeds. Deer would flock to the fresh growth that followed the burning, making them an easy target. All in all it worked well for the natives for the 4,000 years before their world turned upside down, when the wagon trains started rolling in.
Now some of the current inhabitants of those same lands are fleeing walls of flames and are feeling lucky to escape with their lives. Whole towns have been reduced to ash and many have lost a lifetime of efforts in a moment.
Words seem a weak way to offer comfort to those whose life has been so upturned, but I wish to say I am so sorry if this has happened to you or someone you love. In view of all that has occurred this year, these fires are the cruelest by far. The flames have no mercy or restraint. They follow their own volition and seemingly have no plan as to who they spare and from whom they take everything.
Fire has been a part of Cottage Grove from its founding. Settlers relied on it for cooking, heating, light, and power. When you play with fire the price is always the risk that your servant will escape its bonds and leave you an inferno to deal with.
In the early days volunteers came together to fight the flames that originated from wood stoves, chimneys, candles, or other fire-using domestic sources.
The earliest fire fighting was neighbor helping neighbor in quickly organized bucket brigades. Since Cottage Grove grew up along the Coast Fork of the Willamette River, a water source was never far away. Passing the full buckets and returning the empties was sometimes successful in saving the home or business. If not, wood was cheap and the structure would be rebuilt or even expanded in a grand fashion. Even if the building couldn’t be saved, it was crucial to stop the fire spreading to nearby wooden structures by wetting them down.
Later came the hand-drawn carts with a tank of water, hose and a hand-operated pump. This innovation, along with the expansion of the town away from the river, necessitated more organization in fighting fires.
The first fire department recorded was named the Eagle Hose Company. Still relying on volunteers, this early version was summoned by the ringing of a bell. When the city water system was constructed, hydrants were added. The water pressure from the reservoir on Mt. David was enough to power the hoses. Now the hand carts only carried sections of fire hose.
The West Side Fire Tower bell, bought and later donated by the Horn family.
There were three hand carts; one on the west side (Slabtown), one on the east side (Lemati) and one east of the train depot. Also were two fire towers with bells to sound the alarm, one on each side of the river. The towers were also used to hang the canvas fire hoses to dry.
Since getting the fire carts to the scene as quickly as possible was critical and since this was also volunteer-dependent there was sometimes a shortage of pullers. Attempting to rectify this shortcoming an arrangement was made between the fire company and the local horse draymen. A reward of $5 was offered to the first to show up and haul the fire cart to the scene of the fire. Even after the advent of motorized fire trucks, it was common to see horse-drawn carts showing up at the fires. There was even a friendly competition to see who could show up first.
The East Side Fire Tower also housed city hall after the Slabtown/Lemati feud died down. It was in the block south of Main on 6th St. It stood until the old city hall was built on the same site in 1911. That building still stands and is currently used as offices and apartments. The fire department was on the right side, which now houses the Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council. Missing today are the large doors to allow the fire equipment’s quick exit.
The evolution from an all volunteer fire troop, through a mixture of volunteer and professional firefighters, to the current South Lane Fire District is an interesting tale and would require more space than available here. Instead I want to share some of the historic fire events that shaped today’s Cottage Grove and document the courage and dedication of the fire personnel who not only kept their community safe, but on several occasions answered the alarm with the ultimate sacrifice.
In a move from kerosene lamps, electricity came to Cottage Grove in 1894 courtesy of Andrew Nelson, an all-around renaissance man who got the idea at the World’s Fair the previous year in Chicago. Things went along smoothly using the water wheel at the flour mill at night. But not being content with nighttime operation only, Nelson installed a steam-driven generator in 1899. The next year the plant burned down so he threw in the towel. Others picked up the mantle and fires followed in 1907 and again in ’27.
A much more explosive and tragic fire happened on Monday morning, Oct. 22, 1956. An alert neighbor called in that the local gas company’s small plant building had exploded and was on fire. The Cottage Grove Gas Company was located by the railroad tracks just north of Thayer Ave. After police and fire departments arrived on the scene it was apparent that there were bigger problems ahead. The firemen had just laid out their hoses when it was observed that the 15,000-gallon butane gas tank, already burning, was starting to buckle. At this point many of the first-responders started to run, but it was too late. The tank exploded in a fireball that was heard all the way to Walker. Many were burned or struck with flying metal pieces of the tank or rivets.
At least 22 were injured, including the Fire Chief Ernest Shipley, and Police Chief Ed Jones. Four firemen were severely burned. Local residents were also injured, but those capable of helping used their personal cars to get victims to the hospital.
A call for mutual aid went out and help arrived from Eugene, Springfield, and Creswell, that included fire, police, and medical doctors and staff. Fresh blood and plasma came in from as far away as Portland. Three volunteer firemen eventually died of the burns they received responding to the needs of their community.
In memory of their heroism, their names are inscribed on a plaque, which also remembers two other firemen who lost their lives in the line of duty in other actions. The plaque is at the South Lane Fire District Fire House on Harrison, which was completed in 1970.
The memorial to fallen firefighters, which includes three from a 1956 fire.
Part of the memorial includes the original westside fire bell. This is the one that hung in the fire tower in Slabtown. Around 1922 a steam whistle replaced the bells as a signal to summon the volunteer fireman and the bells lay unused in the West Side Fire Tower. Mrs. M. A. Horn, who had grown up hearing the bells, approached the city during the lean depression years about the chance of buying one of them.
It took a couple of tries but eventually the Horns, who owned a local gravel company, bartered with the city to gravel a number of streets downtown in exchange for the bell. It hung for many years at their farm and was used to signal various family members or helpers in from the fields, each with their own code number of peals.
The Horn family donated the bell back to the Fire District in 1976.
Cottage Grove, a mill town, experienced a number of big fires that originated in lumber mills where moving machinery, fuels, sawdust, and wood debris were a bad combination. Often what happened was a spark caused a slow-burning ember that didn’t erupt until late that night.
I had a job in a mill as a night fire watchman. I had to make hourly rounds carrying a clock and visit every area of the plant to check and make sure nothing was smouldering. There was a key located everywhere I needed to inspect and I had to turn the key in the clock. Easiest mill job I ever did and got a lot of reading in between rounds too.
On the night of July 27, 1951, two Grove volunteer firemen returning from Eugene noticed a glow they could see from Goshen. When they got to town, they sounded the alarm, gathered more men and equipment but by the time they got to the Cottage Grove Lumber Company’s mill there was little they could do. The newspaper account notes that this was the third major mill fire in nine months.
Downtown has suffered bad fire events as well. On Jan. 31, 1963, the JCPenney’s, Arcade Theater, and Carl’s Paint Store, went up in flames due to a faulty oil heater. The fire department was hard-pressed to do much more than contain the damage, which was estimated around $450,000 in 1963 prices.
That fire explains the absence of historic buildings on Main where the Shampoo Dolls and city parking lots are located now.
In terms of what we are experiencing now the closest comparison comes with the August 1966 Oxbow Ridge fire west of Cottage Grove. At the time it was the fourth-largest fire in Oregon history, having burned over 42,000 acres. Then as now, very dry conditions teamed with strong winds to cause a fast-moving fire that was only contained by tenacious firefighters.
Comparing that to now with over a million acres gone in a week, it seems almost insignificant. Maybe it is time to agree that our climate is in fact changing and that we should at least start to talk about a new normal.
Fire will always be with us so let’s figure out how to live with it. Maybe we should consult the Kalapuya and see what they can teach us. Stay Safe!
Author’s note: Special thanks to the Cottage Grove Historical Society’s “Golden was the Past” publications for aid in researching this article.
You can contact Dana at [email protected]
