May Erect Building - 1911

Citizen Oct 5, 1911

MAY ERECT BUILDING

Town Board Takes Necessary Steps to Provide Quarters for Fire Company and Apparatus.

The town board has for a short time past been giving considerable thought to the project of putting up a - - a building which will accommodate the fire apparatus and provide a meeting place for the board and the fire company, and a polling place at elections.

The structure in favor is'a cement block building, 20x40, one story high, to be erected as an addition to the water works pumping station.

Another storage reservoir is already needed by the Water company, necessitating additional room at the pump house, and the new building would meet this need.

At a future date a second story over the old and new building would provide an excellent public ball for entertainments, conventions and meetings.

The town has funds on hand which make the project here outlined feasible.

The town board has been led to take up the matter of erecting a town ball by the attitude of the fire company. It may not be generally known, or at least held in mind, that the company has maintained its organization at its own expense. It bought and furnished a building. for its meetings, the Water company furnishing the apparatus.

Recently the lot on which the building stood was sold and the purchaser raised the rent of the land. The company then decided to disband unless the town provided suitable quarters.

The members said that as long as they stood between the property owners and a serious loss by fire they were entitled to financial support from the town authorities.

Previous town boards had never done anything for the fire boys, and when it came to a question of going down into their own pockets and paying more rent or moving they would throw up their organization. With the latter course in view they advertised their furniture for sale.

This movement aroused the town board, and its appeciation of the importance of the fire company to the property owners is shown in the steps now being taken to give the company suitable quarters paid for, as is the case everywhere, out of the public fands.

The fact that no fire has destroyed property in the business center for a number of years is perhaps the reason why our town boards have been slow to recognize the claims of the fire company.

But the time is sure to come when the fate of one or more business firms will bang upon the efforts of an orgapized fire company equipped with efficient apparatus. As property owners the members of the town board look at the matter in the light that the rest of us do - - there isn't one of us who, if he knew that his property would be endangered by fire tonight, would not gladly put up a pretty liberal sum of money to get the services of the company rather than trust to the unorganized efforts of the neighbors with buckets.