Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph

In the early 1890s, Los Gatos had two volunteer firefighting companies, one on each side of the bridge. This is Hose Company No. 2, on the east side.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Rash of fires proved need for town fire department

It was a flare of spectacular fires before the turn of the century that brought Los Gatos to thinking about fire protection for the 20th century.

Major fires back in those hook-and-ladder days included the Brandy Fire, Nov. 20, 1888; the Cartridge Fire, July 27, 1891; and the Livery Stable Fire, Oct. 13, 1901.

These three town burners, which erupted within a period of 13 years, opened the eyes of the entire town board of trustees. Firemen had been pleading for a meeting place, a water system and a fire bell. Previously, some board members argued that a bell was not necessary because there were so many church bells in town.

The Brandy Fire was the first to open town eyes to the dangers. Gas escaping from one of the stills of the Co-operate Winery was ignited by a lantern hanging nearby. Although a few hundred gallons of brandy were rolled out to safety, tremendous heat and too little pressure from a fire hydrant prevented further rescue of the winery and its contents.

The Cartridge Fire broke out at the rear of the Place and Fretwell Furniture Store. The town's night watchman ran to the nearby Presbyterian Church and rang the alarm bell. The fire exploded into the J. J. Richardson Hardware store, with additional explosions at the rear of T. S. McMurtry.

Bernard Lee's Los Gatos Store exploded, too, shaking things for a mile around, breaking widows and damaging the roof of the Ice Works at Forbes Mill. Dynamite was, unfortunately for these stores, a common sales item in those days.

In all, both sides of Main Street burned, from Los Gatos Creek on the west to Church Street on the east.

The Livery Stable Fire did to the west side of the Main Street bridge what the Cartridge Fire did to the east side. Both sides of the street were flattened into ashes, from the bridge to the railroad tracks. The fire started in a livery stable on Front Street, now Montebello Way.

Still to come was the 1909 fire that destroyed the four-story, double-porched El Monte Hotel on the northeast corner of E. Main Street and Pleasant Street--now the main entrance to the Los Gatos High School parking lot.

The fire department had gone professional in 1896, with the town board ordering a salary of $2 per year per fireman. It wasn't until 1915, though, that the town purchased its first piece of mechanized equipment--a La France combination chemical and hose truck. In 1916, another bond issue made possible a modern firehouse at W. Main Street and Tait Avenue.

From 1920 to 1955, Jack Sullivan served as fire chief, the longest tenure in the department's history. In 1938, Fred L. Lord became the first full-time paid, resident fireman.

The town's first wood-mounted bell toppled in the great fire of 1901, prompting the building of a 60-foot steel tower on Lundy Lane behind St. Luke's Episcopal Church. A clocklike system rang out certain hours, the evening 10 o'clock curfew and a coded set of fire numbers that indicated the location of fires.

Today, the bell receives proper homage on display in the Town Plaza Park.

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