History

Everyone and every thing has a story to tell.

According to research done in 1975 “The Town of Ellettsville was founded in 1837. The population of the Town has always been about 700 to 1000 people. This was the case up until the mid 1960's when the Town really started to grow. On Sunday, August 1st, 1886, Ellettsville suffered the greatest loss by fire in the history of the Town. It was described as a small conflagration. At about 10:30 pm, the engine room of Shook and Faulkner's wagon works was discovered to be on fire. A number of citizens reaching the location almost simultaneously. The alarm became general and in a few minutes, most of our people were at the scene. 

After the great conflagration in the Town, the Towns people saw a need for some type of fire protection.” This is where our story begins “ They met several times over a period of 18 months and finally, a group of men formed the "Ellettsville Fire Company". The date was May 29, 1888. A set of By-Laws was drawn up and approved. It consisted of how many people the organization could have, when and where they would meet, the company would have a chief, an assistant chief, treasurer and secretary. This form of organization held firmly for five years. The only equipment at that time were a hand pumper (which Bloomington left after the conflagration), leather buckets, everyone was issued an axe and bed keys. When a fire was noted, the fire company would get the hand pumper and go to the nearest water source and start pumping through makeshift hoses. 

In October, 1893 the fire company changed its name to the "Pioneer Fire Company". The By-Laws were basically the same except now they added brigade captains, they were assigned to each side of Town so that everyone in the fire company would have someone to answer to at an alarm. 

Sometime in the late 1890's, the Pioneer Fire Company came into a loosely run organization. It is believed that this came about due to the lack of fires in the Town. Sometime during the turn of the century, the "Pioneer" was not used and people simply called it the "Fire Department". The Department was only given money by the Town Board only when it was absolutely necessary. This was the case up until the 1940's. According to Ruby Endwright, who joined the Fire Department in 1932, if you wanted to be on the Fire Department, just show up when there was a fire and you could help. He stated that they did buy rubber fire coats and aluminum helmets in 1939. Up until 1940, the only piece of equipment was the hand pumper that was donated by Bloomington Fire Department. 

In 1940, Roy McNeely donated a 1936 Chevrolet 1 ton pick-up which was light blue in color. The truck was equipped with 1200 feet of 2 1/2 hose, 200 feet of 1 1/2 hose and 25 feet of 1 inch rubber hose. The truck also had axes, pike poles and a ladder. According to Endwright, the truck was almost in compliance with NFPA pamphlet #19 (now NFPA 1901) except that it did not have water and that it was blue, not red. This truck would always have to hook into the hydrant before it could spray any water. It was very common and standard procedure to lay a dry line. There were very few fires in our Town. Then on December 7, 1946, there was a house fire in which a prominent local citizen's house burned to the ground. It was at this time when the Town of Ellettsville took over the responsibilities of fire protection. It was also becoming more common for Towns to start taking care of the finances and start funding the Fire Departments. 

In 1947, Ruby Endwright was appointed Fire Chief for an annual salary of $10.00 per year. The Richland Township schools paid an unknown price for fire protection, a contract for the Fire Department to respond to fires in Richland Township, it was $1,000 annually. The problem was that the fire truck carried no water and that it would only benefit the people who had a pond or creek nearby. Therefore, a fund drive was established to get a Class "B" pumper. In October, 1947 the Town Board and the Fire Chief went to New York City for a meeting with the National Fire Protection Association. This was to help the Town formulate and regulate a Fire Department.” Unknown who performed Research or the Author of this portion of information above. Information courtesy Mike Cornman. 

Our story does not end there. Keep reading... 

Past and Present 

The “characters” of this story past and present are many and varied but all with one common goal to protect, rescue and educate the public they serve or served.