Firefighting in Los Angeles: 1869-1940

D owntown Los Angeles in 1869 resembled, more than anything else, the Hollywood version of a typical wild West town, complete with the requisite saloons, gun slingers, malcontents, stagecoaches, and horses. San Pedro was a hard day's ride away, the San Fernando Valley was a rancher's paradise known as "the Valley of Smokes," and Anaheim, a small German settlement, was part of Los Angles County. The trappings of society--paved roads, traffic signals, freeways, and mini-malls--were unimagined.

Enter William Mansfield Buffum: saloon keeper, land speculator, and political powerhouse. Some say more city business took place in his saloon than in City Hall, and rumors of political deals always seemed to make Billy all the richer. He catered to the elite and befriended the political community. It is fitting that on November 6, 1869, all men interested in organizing a volunteer fire department for the City of Los Angeles were asked to meet in his establishment.

Obtaining the $3,000. to purchase the first fire engine was a difficult task, even with Buffun's political clout completely behind the project. But eventually the first volunteer fire department was formed and received its first operable piece of firefighting apparatus, a 750 gallon-per-minute Amoskeag steam pumper. The challenges of fighting L.A.'s early fires (such as the one that destroyed the Belmont hotel) were different than those facing modern firefighters. Today's methods of reporting fires--telephones and computers--are far superior to the popular method in the 1870's--shooting your gun into the air until the firemen responded. And modern firefighters don't have to wonder whether or not their horses will be able to pull their rigs up a hill. Then again, those 19th century volunteers never had to face raging infernos in 50-story structures.

That first meeting in Billy Buffun's saloon began a tradition of dedicated firefighting in Los Angeles which is as rich, as heroic, and as colorful as any of the more highly publicized fire departments in the nation. This exhibit examines the development of firefighting in Los Angeles from 1869 to 1940, with an emphasis on the Los Angeles Fire Department.

It is a period ranging from the first horse drawn equipment to the development of multi-purpose motorized vehicles, from the volunteer department of 38 men to a paid department of several hundred, from a group of concerned citizens dousing fires in a sleepy backwater pueblo town to a force protecting a thriving metropolis.