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Fire up the engines: SSVFD gets a brand-new station
8110 Georgia Avenue is the first new facility for the department since 1915 |
A new era in the history of the Silver Spring Fire Department will commence on Sunday, July 23 at 1:00 p.m. when the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service hosts the grand opening of the recently completed Montgomery County Fire Station #1.
Located at 8110 Georgia Avenue (between Silver Spring and Sligo avenues), the opening of the new fire station brings to an end the 90 years of community service provided by Silver Spring's original volunteer firehouse.
| Photo: Jerry A. McCoy |
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| The Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Dept. has been housed in this 1913 building since its inception. Although the department will only be moving across the street, the change represents the end of a distinguished era of service—and the start of another. |
Located across the street and half a block away at 8131 Georgia Avenue, the original Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department #1 was organized in 1915 when Georgia Avenue, then named Brookeville Avenue, was but a dusty dirt road traversed by the occasional automobile or streetcar of the Washington, Woodside & Forest Glen railway. The fire department shared the building, which had opened the previous year as the Silver Spring Armory, with the Maryland National Guard's Company K, 115th Infantry.
How the SSVFD #1 came to be is an interesting story. Downtown Silver Spring of 93 years ago was still a largely rural community. Only a handful of businesses fronted today's Georgia Avenue, with the majority of them clustered about the original 1878 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station (occupied today by a replacement built in 1945). Less than 50 homes had been constructed, all located east of Georgia Avenue in what was then named Silver Spring Park. The borders of this subdivision, first surveyed in 1905, came to include the streets encompassed by present-day Bonifant Street on the north, Cedar Street on the east, and Sligo Avenue on the south.
On the night of March 10, 1913, the 17-room "country residence" of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel D. Waters was completely destroyed by fire. Located on the south side of the 900 block of Sligo Avenue (then Blair Road), the house was consumed by a conflagration fueled by nearly 100 gallons of heating oil stored in the furnace room. Within half an hour of the flames being discovered, the home was reduced to ashes. Thirteen individuals were living in the house at the time of the fire, and all escaped unharmed.
| Photo Courtesy of Silver Spring Historical Society |
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With no municipal water supply to fight the fire, only the arrival of a chemical engine stationed at Petworth, D.C. prevented the surrounding properties from succumbing to the intense flames.
After this devastating fire, discussions began in the community about starting a volunteer fire department. Establishment of the department was still in the "talking" stage when tragedy struck again. On May 5, 1915, the Silver Spring Post Office, located only a few doors south of the Silver Spring Armory, went up in flames. This time the Ladies' Cooperative Improvement Society, established in 1913 for "the betterment and improvement of Silver Spring," prodded their husbands and neighbors into action by setting up an organizational meeting on May 15, 1915 that resulted in the establishment of the Silver Spring Fire Department.
Initial funds to purchase a hand pump firefighting apparatus were raised by selling tickets to a benefit performance held at Poli's Theater, located at 15th and E streets in Washington. Performed by the Poli Popular Players was The Blue Bird, a play by Belgian poet, dramatist, and mystic Maurice Maeterlinck. Patronesses of the production were Improvement Society members Mrs. Gist Blair, Mrs. Brooke Lee, and Mrs. Helen Thompson.
James H. Cissel, president of the Silver Spring National Bank, donated a shed behind the Silver Spring Armory, and the new fire department was poised to fight the next fire.
| PHOTO: COURTESY SILVER SPRING HISTORICAL SOCIETY |
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| Then: 1915 Silver
Spring volunteer firefighters
with their new hand pump. |
Pictured in 1915 with their newly acquired hand pump in front of the shed are (left to right) original members Ernest Sayer, Fred L. Lutes (on ladder), George Hall, Clay V. Davis, Chief Fred N. "Ike" Oden, Victor Bender, Edward Jones, William Glover, and department president William V. Jouvenal.
On June 11, 1918, the SSVFD #1 incorporated and purchased the Silver Spring Armory from the State of Maryland for $5,500 (approximately $79,400 in 2005 dollars). The structure was used exclusively by the fire department after 1927, when the National Guard moved into its new facility at 945 Wayne Avenue.
In 1998, the Silver Spring Armory, listed in Montgomery County's Master Plan for Historic Preservation, was demolished to allow the construction of the Wayne Avenue parking garage.
Our community's original 1914 SSVFD #1 is currently listed in Montgomery County's Locational Atlas & Index of Historic Sites. Designation in either the Master Plan or the lower-tiered Atlas & Index offers some protection in that any proposed change or endangerment to listed structures must go through a county review process. Designation does not automatically preclude a historic structure from being demolished; the review process simply makes demolition a little more difficult.
The SSVFD Inc., owner of the fire station, plans to sell the structure. The Silver Spring Historical Society shall remain vigilant in the preservation and adaptive reuse of this landmark structure, located on downtown Silver Spring "Main Street," and encourages the community to come to its assistance in the event that the building is threatened with demolition.
| Photo: Jerry A. McCoy |
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| Again: The new building for the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department #1, 8110 Georgia Avenue. |
In the meantime, please join your friends and neighbors on July 23 to tour the new $13.3 million, four-story Silver Spring Fire Station. This multi-use civic building will also house downtown Silver Spring's Montgomery County Police substation as well as offices of the Silver Spring Urban District. The fourth floor will eventually house an interactive safety museum for children.
After your visit, please cross Georgia Avenue to visit the little firehouse that served this community so well for over nine decades. Make sure you see and touch the dated cornerstone (above right), with its raised lettering and dates. Admire the foot-high patinaed metal letters affixed to the front of the building that proudly proclaim SILVER SPRING VOL. FIRE DEPT. (Sadly, the word "volunteer" did not migrate to signage on the new fire station.) We hope that these letters will be retained on the 1914 structure.
And as a way of continuing the tradition of cornerstones gracing structures on Georgia Avenue (there are at least two others nearby...seek them out), maybe the new fire station can have installed into its façade a 2006 cornerstone in the months to come!
If you can share with the Silver Spring Historical Society any photographs/memorabilia of the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department #1, please contact SSHS at P.O. Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD 20910-1160, email sshistory@yahoo.com, or call 301-537-1253. The society's web site is www.sshistory.org. Current and future residents and historians will thank you!
Discover the OLD in the NEW Silver Spring!
On Saturday, August 5, Silver Spring Historical Society member Karen Kali will conduct a walking tour of south Silver Spring. The tour starts at 10 a.m. from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station, 8100 Georgia Avenue, and returns to the station at noon. Cost is $5.00 per person. Children under age 13 free. (Free for SSHS members with membership card.) Friendly dogs are welcomed. Reservations are not required. On display at the railroad station on this date will be Vintage Silver Spring Photographs by Robert B. Davis (the station agent from 1945 to 1987). This free exhibit will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information email sshistory@yahoo.com or call 301-537-1253. |
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