I'm referring to the Saratoga Fire District's July 2003 newsletter, which included a historical sketch by "an anonymous Saratoga firefighter." It states that "the building at 14380 Saratoga Ave. (the present fire station) had its birth some time between 1842 and 1896." I can't imagine where those dates came from. The present fire station was built as an auto-repair garage sometime in the early 1920s. It was the logical place to house the district's first motorized equipment, a Ford Model T firetruck.

Here again I run into a problem with dates and sources. In August 1949, when I was starting my newspaper career covering the West Valley for the San Jose Mercury Herald, now the Mercury News, I did an in-depth article on the Saratoga Fire District. At that time there were still people around who were in on the ground floor of the district's formation, people such as Pete Albini, who joined the department in 1898. In addition to this article, I also have at hand two books: Florence Cunningham's Saratoga's First Hundred Years and R.V. Garrod's Saratoga Story, both trustworthy sources.

The sign on the fire station says, in part, "Established 1923," which I take to mean the district. My other sources have this occurring in 1924. More puzzling to me is the date of purchase of the first firetruck. The Cunningham, Garrod and fire district accounts all have this as 1924. In my 1949 article, I quoted the July 23, 1925, issue of the weekly Los Gatos Star, which had that year, 1925, as the date of the truck acquisition and the organization of what in 1949 was still the Saratoga Volunteer Fire Department.

"Saratoga now has equipment and organization second to none in the state for a place of its size," the Star proclaimed. I'll have to admit my prejudice in favor of this source, since my dad was editor at the time. Nitpicking over dates aside, I think of the pre-mechanized era of Saratoga firefighting as being of special interest. This involved a man-pulled hose cart and either four or six—depending on which source you consult—fire hydrants along Lumber Street, now Big Basin Way.

According to my 1949 sources, the hose cart was kept at Martin Kane's blacksmith shop, a building now occupied by the Big Basin Bistro wine shop. When the Model T firetruck was acquired, housed at the Saratoga Garage, the hose cart was taken there and sometimes used as a trailer behind the truck.

I can recall seeing that long-retired hose cart sitting by the old town jail on Fourth Street at the foot of the hill below Oak Street. That also was the location of the fire bell tower, a steel structure of some 60 feet. When I used to pass by there on my way to school—this would have been 1929 to 1931—I could see the bell lying on the ground at the base of the tower. It hadn't been used since it was replaced by a fire siren atop the Saratoga Garage around 1926, and I don't know how many years that bell lay undisturbed before the volunteer fire department mounted it outside their hall on Oak Street around 1949. What I do know is that an artifact like that wouldn't survive being left out on the ground today. As I recall, the steel tower was taken down during the World War II drive for scrap metal.

The aforementioned Pete Albini, who joined the fire department in 1898, answered alarms until he was 85. In 1949, he told me about the time not long after signing on when he was with a crew fighting the fire in a Chinese laundry. He said he took the hose up to the second floor, which suddenly gave way beneath his feet. If he hadn't had a good grip on the hose, he said, he would have fallen through with the collapsing floor.

Such stories are a part of any adventurous activity such as firefighting, and the Saratoga department will be adding a new dimension to this lore with the new firehouse. We look forward to it.