By Clint Cooper
The Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Since firefighters spend many of their waking and sleeping hours at fire stations, the stations become a second home for the first responders.
Today, in a more streamlined Chattanooga Fire Department, many of the fire stations have found second uses or are unused but still standing.
Still, they hold memories for those who served there.
“You can’t be content in where you are if you don’t know where you came from and where you’re going,” said George Spencer, who retired as 1st assistant fire chief for the city’s fire department in 1985.
Among the former fire stations are three brick bungalows with pitched roofs and dark wood trim to blend in with the architecture of the neighborhoods in which they were built. They also have long, narrow hose rooms instead of hose towers — for hanging the wet hoses — found at most stations of the time.
One, on Brainerd Road, is now the home of Connoisseur Motor Cars. A second, on Forest Avenue in North Chattanooga, most recently housed the Chattanooga Fire Department’s Toys for Tots campaign. The third, on St. Elmo Avenue, is now home to the Community Association of Historic St. Elmo.
Ben Cruz, who owns the classic car company in Brainerd, said the station still has its original windows and doors and required little more than paint when he bought it in 1977.
“Like any fire building, it was built to last,” he said. “It has walls that are four bricks thick.”
The former No. 13 fire hall was built in 1930 at a cost of $11,510, according to Times Free Press archives, and served the city until early 1977.
Jim Crittenden of Eye-Ear Optical and Arvin Reingold, a local attorney, bought the building from the city that year after it was declared surplus. Although a fire damaged the building later the same year, Mr. Cruz bought it and has used it since.
Mr. Spencer said when he joined the department in 1955, the Brainerd station had one of two Dalmatian dogs still kept by firefighters. He said the Dalmatian, Lij, often was sent down the street to a store with money that the storekeeper would exchange for dog treats before sending him back.
The North Chattanooga bungalow, he said, was the first station at which he worked when he was an “extra man,” which the department had on each shift. Built around 1930, it was used by the department until 1997.
The St. Elmo bungalow, according to Mr. Spencer, was the first fire station in Chattanooga to be tied to a bells and lights system which would automatically raise the door upon receipt of a call.
He said it also was the last port of call for Abe Sertel, who had served longer than any local firefighter on the force when he retired and was the last tie to the former volunteer, horse-drawn force.
St. Elmo neighborhood association president Scott Noll said the city sold the building to the association in 2003 for $1. Since the association generates very little money, it has very little money with which to maintain the building and a restrictive clause as to how the association can use it, he said.
“We’re thankful for the building,” he said, “but we’re trying to figure out how best to use it, maintain it and insure it.”
The association’s long-term hope, Mr. Noll said, is to sell it back to the city, be allowed to have a second-floor renter to generate revenue, or have the city take it back and allow the association to rent it.
The building had closed as a fire station around 1975 but continued to be used by the department for a number of years.
Other former stations still standing:
• No. 2: The former 20th Street station is now the home of One Force Staffing, a light industrial temporary service. Built in 1959, the brick building was closed in 2001. During its service as a fire station, Mr. Spencer said, the height of one of its bay doors had to be raised and an extension added to its rear to accommodate an aerial ladder truck.
• No. 3: The former Georgia Avenue station is now occupied by an insurance agency. Built in 1957 on the site of a previous fire station, it was used until the mid- to late-1980s. Once designated by a sign as “Headquarters, Central Fire Station,” it also housed the office of the fire chief.
• No. 7: Once the home of the Chattanooga Safety Lane, the barn-like Central Avenue building was used as a fire station from 1985 until 2001. The idea to convert the already city owned property came from then-Chattanooga City Commissioner Jim Eberle, Mr. Spencer said. The previous No. 7 station on Main Street is now used as a warehouse by T.U. Parks.
• No. 10: The former station at the corner of 47th Street and Kirkland Avenue is now the Davis Residential Care Facility. Used by the fire department for less than two decades and closed in 1975, it was built with separate facilities for black and white firefighters, Mr. Spencer said. In its day, he said, the station housed the first factory-built engine for Chattanooga that had pre-connected hose for extremely fast attack of a fire.
• No. 11: The former Sheridan Avenue station is now the home of the Missionary Ridge Neighborhood Association. Built in 1967 to replace the former bungalow station on South Crest Road next to Bragg Reservation on Missionary Ridge, which was a casualty of the rerouting of South Crest Road after the construction of Interstate 24, it was closed earlier this decade.
• No. 16: The former Lee Highway station is now the headquarters of the Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service. Since its closing around 1977 and conversion, it received a two-bay aluminum addition. It was a twin station to the No. 15 fire hall still in use on Shallowford Road, Mr. Spencer said.
Copyright 2008 Chattanooga Publishing Company