break of the wars. It bears the names of nine dead in the first war and twenty-seven in the second. The entire cost was $3,500, the work being done by Mr. Blaine Tarman of Gridley. All veterans of the community were invited to the dedication by Senator C. Wayland Brooks during a Corn Festival program on September 12, 1947.
FIRES. Between 1873 and 1894 seven major fires wiped out great portions of the business district and in some cases spread into the residential area. The first major fire destroyed the Bigham & McOmber buggy and carriage factory, their livery stable and several horses in 1873. The first Seery & Rouse grain elevator also burned that year, and Grafft's planing mill and Webster's elevator burned September 19, 1875.
The third big fire in less than two years emphasized the need for better fire protection. On October 14, 1875 a group of citizens petitioned the city council for recognition as a fire company. Their petition was granted and they were ordered to form an organization of not more than thirty-five men. Members of the fire department were exempt from jury duty and the payment of the annual poll tax at that time.
An order for $1,000 had previously been issued for the purchase of a fire engine, and at this meeting the mayor was instructed to "draw an order for $800, less expenses of the committee to Mendota (where the engine was purchased) for payment of the balance due on the same." It was a "big, double cylinder chemical affair, painted bright red, with brass trim." On March 2, 1876 the fire company sponsored a dance to raise money for minor equipment and this was the first of many fund-raising projects sponsored by the firemen when money was unavailable to meet all the department's needs.
In mid-October, 1876, a fire set by sparks from an Illinois Central train swept over 100 acres of the Adam Henning farm south of El Paso and threatened the roundhouse at the south end of the switch yards. Twenty men carried the hose in their hands ahead of the city's Champion fire engine, playing water on the flames, which stopped within feet of the roundhouse. A fire, believed of incendiary origin, did destroy the roundhouse some years later, but it had been unused after the Illinois Central built other lines and diverted much of the original traffic through El Paso.
In July, 1877 a hook and ladder truck was added to our fire fighting equipment, and the next month the city leased ground from the Illinois Central as the site for a fire house. It was located at the northeast corner of First and Central Streets. A wooden tower was erected and a fire alarm bell installed which had been cast in Sheffield, England in 1868 and weighed 610 pounds. This first tower was near the Clifton Hotel, but after the 1894 fire a second tower was built at the fire house, where the bell remained until it was moved to the new steel tower adjoining the city hall in 1907. This tower had rusted by January, 1950, so the heavy bell was taken down as a siren had replaced it in fire alarms some years before. Roger Benson converted the tower
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