McLaren: Thank you. Well the Fire Department was organized a few weeks after the City was incorporated, which was in July, 1907, and I have a copy here from the San Anselmo Improvement Club. It says:

“The purpose and object of this, the undersigned residents of San Anselmo, to organize and we do hereby organize an independent fire company, to acquire the necessary apparatus to protect the town from fire and obtain an adequate supply of water and the distribution thereof to the different parts of the Town. Each of the hereby undersigned agrees to become and does hereby become an active member of such company and each agrees to contribute funds to the accomplishment of this purpose above set forth.”

It's signed by 73 residents of San Anselmo at that time. Now you have to remember in those days ladies did not sign petitions, so it was 73 families who signed this, and that was what actually organized the San Anselmo Independent Volunteer Fire Department, as it was known in those days.

Now before that, before Town incorporation, there were three different districts in San Anselmo that had hose carts. This comprised of a hose wagon that I think you have seen. Two wheels and hose rack that held approximately three hundred feet of hose and it was pulled by people. So we had three of them. One was placed nearby where the Tamalpais Theatre is today; the other one was placed where our Post Office is today, next to the E.K. Wood Lumber Company; the third at that time, at Lansdale, just at Elm, well close to Elm and San Anselmo Avenue. Well, when they had the election to form the fire department, the Lansdale was against it. Of course they were the minority in those days and they lost out. But to incorporate the Town, the vote was only by four votes that the City was incorporated. There was a lot of objection from what they called in those days “the Bush Tract Gang." So then, from there on -- 1907, we had the Fire Department. And our first chief was Fonnesbeck, and he was elected from the fire companies themselves.

In 1908, the hose cart placed over by the Tamalpais Theatre was given to the City, I mean Town (I'm sorry John [Colteaux], I mean Town.) as its first hose cart. In 1908, the City contracted and had 13 fire alarm boxes put in through the most populated areas of the Town. That was the start of the fire alarm system.

Then in 1909 or 10, the other three independent hose companies got together and with the City bought a wagon to be drawn by horses. Of course the City had no horses, so they stationed it at my father's livery stable because naturally there were horses available at all times. They weren't trained, but they were able to take it to the fire.

Then in 1911 the City Hall was built and the Fire Department was built. The total sum was $5,291 to build the City Hall and the Fire Station. So when they got the Fire Station and the City Hall, they had to have some horses. They bought two horses from the Underwriters lab in San Francisco. Underwriters Laboratory was owned and controlled by the insurance agents, and they were the ones that set rates for the insurance rates and also they went around in San Francisco and did the salvaging. In other words, whenever there was a fire in San Francisco, they salvaged the household equipment in these buildings to keep down the fire rates.

Then in 1913, the Fire Department took a survey and found that they had 80 members at that time and two horses, Major and Colonel, and they had two other hose carts, one at E.K. Wood and the other at what they called the Bush Tract between Yolanda and Lansdale. There was another hose cart, #4, that was on Butterfield (which we call Butterfield today and Carlson), but that was not in the Town limits.

So anyway we go back to 1917, 1916. They wanted to buy a motorized fire truck. At that time, Deysher and Lafargue, which was situated at that just above the hub of San Anselmo (there's a German Auto store there now) were building fire trucks for all the cities in the State of California and they were going to Chief Cartwright and getting recommendations on now to do things. So anyway, they contracted with Deysher and Lafargue to buy a new modernizer, as they called it, a motor vehicle fire truck, and it was for $6,000. They didn't have the $6,000 but they figured they could put down $1600 a year for so many years and they'd get it. So that’s how we got our first motorized fire truck. Well that truck at that time was a White. Well we kept that into early…late into the 1930’s, in fact I think it went to the 1940’s. In the meantime, we changed it from a White engine to a Studebaker engine, from a White transmission to a Studebaker transmission plus a White transmission. We added water tanks; we added pump. We added everything. You'd never know it was the same piece of equipment.

Well anyway, all through these times now the Fire Department was running dances, card parties. Whist and Bridge was a big thing. They would run these every week. This is how we generated money for the Town to run the Fire Department. Then they had a dance hall. This come up in the teens and that was situated approximately where Sunnyside Nursery is today. And that dance hall, I can remember myself, the fireman ran that dance hall all summer long, they would take one of the horses, either Major or Colonel, and they would get a bale of hay and they would have the horse pull the hay around on the hardwood floors to polish it. I'm talking now, I was only five or six years old (I'm not that old am I?). Anyway, my mother would take us over to Hund' s Drug Store, which is the place where Wells Fargo is and it faced the same as Wells Fargo, towards Tunstead. She'd buy us a cornucopia which I think was a nickel. And we would sit on the railroad platform there and listen to the music for maybe half an hour before we went home. That’s how the Fire Department actually kept it going.

Then in 1922, the chief kind of tired of working everyday and finally he went to the City Council and they agreed to give him one day off a week. That was in 1922. Then in the early 20's, we annexed what we call Hawthorne Hills and that’s west of Butterfield Road where Suffield and Bennett and Hawthorne Hills and Rutherford, that section. Of course there were only two streets in those days. They annexed that from Fairfax, and it was a new subdivision, new homes. It was a good tax for the City. So then the other section of Fairfax from Pastori Avenue, which is the part that goes into the Emporium today, from there on south one block was Fairfax. They wanted to come in. Mayor Fusselman told them “If you want to come into San Anselmo, you'd better clean up your Town.” Never annexed that section.

Also then, in 1922, the Bush Tract and Lansdale and Yolanda wanted a little more fire protection, a little bit more police protection. They wanted a little bit more. So the Town agreed to a bond election. It was $29,000 election and this election would have built a new fire house; it would have extended the fire alarm; and it would have just given them everything. Well the bond issue was defeated. So that lay dormant.

Then in 1924, the fire station, it was a station, a house, a little barn, just big enough to house the hose cart -- in 1924 they decided to tear it down because of vandalism. They couldn't keep it up. Then in 1930, that was mainly the turn of the whole Fire Department in San Anselmo. Chief Cartwright, who had started at $70 a month as a custodian of the horses, eventually elevated to chief, but at this time in 1930 he was 66 years old. And he was kind of slowing up a little bit. And Nello Marcucci, who had been his assistant for a couple of years, had moved up and he had been studying a little bit on the fire. So the Council had a meeting and they vacated the office of fire chief, and elevated Nello to chief. Well when they did that, they gave Chief Cartwright a demotion and made him fire marshall. Now actually what they wanted to do was retire him. They gave him the title of fire marshall and his duties consisted of the following: complete charge of the fire alarm system, inspection and maintaining of the hydrants, inspection and investigation of all conflagrations after they are out, report suspects to the fire commission, assist in the care of fire apparatus, answer the fire calls day or night in the capacity of a fireman. He was also acting as building inspector, election inspector and reporting to the Parks and Housing Committee. He was given - oh - after one day a week from fire alarm and hydrant inspector, he was permitted to continue his duties to the Library Board. He was the janitor of the building. Now that was his retirement! Okay.

In 1930, they called for a bond election. They got a new fire engine, an engine with a pump. Before that we had none. We enlarged the fire station so they could put the new fire engine in. Then we went into training with the first resuscitator in Marin County. We went to Kentfield on resuscitator calls. We had calls to Stinson Beach, believe it or not. It took approximately an hour to get there. You knew what a resuscitator would do when you got there. And we went first. We had the rescue equipment and that was due to the trains that went through. At times we had accidents with cars and people would be crushed underneath the trains. We had Henry Jacks to lift them up. We had all that heavy equipment and we actually used it all through Marin County. Radios! We were the first in Marin County to have radios and that was due to a police officer named Mansfield Lewis. He was a, what do you call it? -- a radio nut, or ... And that was his hobby. He talked Don Wood into putting radios into the police cars, and when they did that, we had to put an antenna on top of City Hall, and then they had another antenna on top of Red Hill. Then they didn't work out so well, so they finally had to put an addition on City Hall. Bill's brother, Frank Sousa, built it out of wood and it went about twenty feet higher than the tower is today -- that was another story. Anyway this radio, it was so popular that the Fire Department of San Anselmo did the broadcasting for the Highway Patrol in Marin County. Of course, that was only up to12 o'clock, but that was because the Highway Patrol didn't work after 12 o'clock. I mean we didn't have those many hours.

Then in 1939 came another addition when we built more on to the Fire Department, and we built more on to the back of the City Hall which has all been taken out. And the Fire Department, and all the work was done at that time by the firemen. And that brings us up to 1939.

Swensen: Dick, I think since you've gotten us that far we ought to take some time to talk about some of the little personal anecdotes of the individuals. You’ve given us a framework to 1939.

What gave rise to this whole evening was the fact that we were going through the fire registers and reading the various entrees. We were actually trying to get things logged in and so forth, and it struck us that some of these entries were very cryptic. It just gave the date, the time, and who went, but some them were quite expansive, some of them were very humorous, some of them dramatic. There were a few that were tragic. So on that basis we thought that it would interesting for all of us to hear about some of the personal incidents in the lives of -- as Bob Beedle said -- their finest moments. So Bob, do you want to lead off?

Beedle: Not so sure about finest moment.

Swensen: That's what you said!

Beedle: Well that's what I told you. But I think I'll just go through a couple of things that happened in my career -- it’s just a small fraction of things that happened. One of the things the fireman fear of fire, the fear of being trapped in a building is in your mind a lot of times. And it should be because you're risking your life to do this. And I guess my experience ties in. This was kind of way back in the '60s and we were kind of just getting use to air packs in those days. We had some on the truck. And that was probably the biggest change in the Fire Department is using the self-contained breathing apparatus. Firemen use to go in and take the smoke because they didn't realize how bad the smoke was for them. And we had self-contained breathing apparatus, but if you used them, you were kind of a sissy. Kinda ridiculous. It came out in the long run, the findings, how bad our lungs really are. Being a fireman in those days probably still took ten years off our life. Life expectancy was reduced ten years due to the smoke and bad stuff.

I'm just going to make a quick point. Probably the scaredest I ever was, we were at Sunnyhills building. Some of you guys who have been around awhile remember the Sunnyhills building. I got up in the attic there. We were trying to find the fire. The kids had lit a fire downstairs in the bathtub and, of course, it went up in the walls. It was certain those buildings had no fire stops. I was crawling through the attic and I was just a kid. I must have been back in the '60s. So I must have been 30 or 25, and I just made lieutenant and I was really trying to be a hero, I guess. I got up in the attic and there were no bells, no alarms, or anything to tell you if you were out of air. So all of a sudden I'm crawling along and I'm in the middle of smoke and I have no idea where I was. I was in the attic and I had no more air and that's probably the most frightened I've ever been in a fire. It was one of those things where was just no warning and all of sudden there’s just no more air. They said look at your gauge, but you can't see a thing. It's pitch black with smoke. And I happen to come to down through a scuttle hole. I was lucky. But I fell down to the floor and I was looking for a window and I made a run for the window and here was Chief Marcucci throwing up out the window. I just kind of bumped him out of the way. I needed air. He'd been taking all this smoke with no air packs or anything on. He was one tough guy. That was how it used to be. I guess that probably the most frightened I was.

I guess the most frightening thing for a chief officer is to order somebody into a building and have them killed or injured because of something you've done. And that always lays in all our minds whoever has an authority whether it be a captain, lieutenant, firefighter in charge. When you go in yourself, its okay because your there. You just go. Well, if you're chief you can't just go. You have to look over the whole building and you are in charge of safety -- everything you can possibly think of -- that’s on you. Well, in Fairfax Hills we were up there fighting this fire -- this was after we became Ross Valley -- and I was doing a great job, because the damn thing was burning down. It was an old shack, big old shack. We had it pretty well contained. We had lines all over. We were putting out pretty well. I had a couple of guys out in the front, on a concrete driveway. And I'm thinking well everybody is pretty safe. And I was looking the building over. And I said, “We got it where we wanted it, and in a few minutes, we'll be able to get it down.” And all of a sudden, the driveway just goes in. A concrete driveway and it just went in -- two firemen on it and they just went down the hole. I said “My God! They’re dead.” I really thought they were dead. I ran over to look and they’d fallen into this deep gully and it was totally fire down there. Luckily they’d hit a rafter, on whatever kind of rafter it was. They were standing on a beam. Actually they'd fallen down and fallen on a beam. So the fellows got a ladder, but there was no place to put the ladder. So we just physically held the ladder so they could climb out. The first guy, Tommy, climbed out. He was no problem; he was 150 lbs. Then we had Bruce Martin, 6'6, 270. He got on the ladder and we all thought we were going in right into the flames. It was -- that was my scariest moment.

Luckily they got out! One is on disability now. I don't think it’s from that. I can't say that or I’d probably be called into court to testify. But he did came back to work. Everyone came back to work. But for any man in charge, that's the most frightening thing, when you have your subordinates in a position, where you think they are totally safe -- concrete driveway in front of a building-- and they fall in.

Well come to find out, this was a dope dealers house and he had dug up under the driveway and had a secret room and when it burned, it burned out under the driveway and down they went. And I mean, your heart just drops. There is nothing I can say.

Let me give way to some of my cohorts up here. And we should probably have some questions from you. I have a lot more things to say as I know Dick does, but I will relinquish my place for a better man.

Swensen: Bill, do you give something about your better moments?

Sousa: On the brighter side, a little bit, you'd be surprised how many calls we got about kids locked in the bathroom, women gone out in the morning to get the paper and the door closes behind them, or their cats in the trees and you've got to get them down.

This little tale is a nice one and I think you'll enjoy it. I was with Dick McLaren (he wasn't a chief then). This cat in a tree, well it took us a little while because you had to get a ladder, and if they were up high, you had to have the big ladder. And we go up and get the cat down. And she was complaining and he handed the cat to her and then he looked around and said to her “Have you ever, have you or anybody else ever found a skeleton of a in a tree?” I turned around and walked away.

Swensen: I have been guilty of calling the fire department and asking you to get the cat out of the tree. Cat got itself out. Dick, how about your particular moment?

McLaren: Particular moments? -- ah -- my moments were all very easy going, more or less. I think the worst moment -- we had a call practically one o'clock in the morning of a structure fire off Canyon Road. When we arrived, this man was in the street putting his head down saying, “I never should have done this. I never should have done this.” It turned out that this fellow had set the house on fire and his younger daughter who was a classmate of one of my daughters -- she was eleven years old -- and she went back in the fire to get her dog and she didn’t get out. So I, knowing the little girl, but it didn’t matter there, I went in myself and I went all through there and we didn't have masks in those days and I went all through that house and I personally think that that's the closest I ever came to passing out. We couldn't find the poor girl and I mean it’s been on my mind ever since. The poor girl, eleven years old. She perished in that fire. I think that was my worst moment.

Swensen: Anybody else? Anything you want to add in the way of personal moments? We’ve had drama, tragedy, a sample of humor, all of which are part of a firemen's day. Do you want to say anything more, or shall we ask for questions?

Beedle: Just one thing, firemen are extremely modest and extremely shy about their duties. I could tell you stories about these guys that you wouldn’t believe. Heroes --ah -- excuse me. I get emotional. Heroism runs rampant and they won't talk about it and I won’t either.

Swensen: Bill, anything more you'd like to bring up of your personal recollections.

Sousa: Well you've got two of them here. And like the roof caved in, and that finished my career with the Fire Department.

Swensen: Tell us about that.

Sousa: It was on a Sunday night. It was funny when I went through the roof. There was no fire. It was on the other end, but all at once I disappeared, and they were looking for me.

Swensen: Did they find you?

Sousa: Eventually. I kept hollering. And then, I thought I passed out, but they're the two that got me out.

But you get a lot of close calls. And a lot of odd calls. But, as I say, many a time you go in with the line and they teach you. That’s even before we had the smoke masks. But whenever you went in through the front door, if you ever get trapped in there, follow the hose out because you get lost very easily. This was before we got all the modern equipment and it was a lot rougher. You get close calls. That's part of the business. And you got height which never bothered me. I don't think it bothered anyone else. Get the ladder on the roof; jump from one thing.

But all and all I'm not sorry when I look back. Those thirty odd years were terrific. I didn't get hurt until I was 34, I mean 34 years on the department. Two more years of therapy and the City paying my time, and then they decided I was too old to come back. So I never went back.

Beedle: I could add a ton to that. I think you should go to the questions.

Swensen: There was one little thing we had on here. We all know about borate bombers today, and all the fancy equipment, but we want to ask you what fire that you remember that required the most unusual equipment? They've had no chance to rehearse this.

McLaren: Well on my part, Pat, in San Anselmo, we didn’t have the industries to have these chemicals to fight. I mean San Anselmo was actually easy, let's put it that way. But talking about that brings up memories. You were talking about unusual. We were called to rescue a horse in a well. And our request was to pump the well out. So we went out there and that's what they wanted, the well pumped down, so we start pumping the well. As we start pumping the well, the horse went down. So it didn't take long for us to figure out, “Hey we're going the wrong way.” We got to fill the well up. So I mean one of the fireman said, “Let’s fill the well up.” So we got a hose line and filled the well up. The horse came up to the top. We got a tow-truck and hooked the thing around his belly and everything and lifted the thing out. Now this is unusual!

Swensen: Equipment - oh marvelousl

McLaren: But it worked. It worked!

Swensen: So ingenuity is essential.

McLaren: Ingenuity.

Swensen: In order to bring questions forward most expeditiously, there are pencils and cards. I think you all know on each table and so if you ask questions from back there, we won't be able to hear you or record you. So if you'd write now -- and we already have one. Oh we have three, excuse me.
The first one is interested in the fire alarm system. Are the call numbers still in effect? Bill, do you--

McLaren: No. The fire alarm system was taken out in 1977 and we don't have it in effect anymore. Any stores like, I should say Red Hill Shopping Center which had a system, Sunnyhills, and San Domenico, they all go into a central location now -- alarm system and they dispatch to the fire department.

Swensen: And the next one is an interesting question! You might not want to answer it! What were the social games played at the social club?

McLaren: What social club?

Sousa: Winter months mostly during the day?

Beedle: I think they're talking about the one you use to run on Saturday night. You use to play whist and pedro.

Sousa: Yeah whist and pedro, but mostly whist. But was this in the firehouse?

Swensen: Remember, you mentioned...

McLaren: Excuse me Pat, let me phrase that. The San Anselmo Firemen’s Club was actually a social club made up more or less of merchants. We called them the Social Club. They helped us in getting funds to keep the Fire Department going. But they were not actually volunteer firemen. They were social members -- as I say. They were more or less merchants.

Swensen: Right, anything else on --- Another question came forward. In the early 1900's, what was the source of water for fighting fires?

McLaren: They had the Marin Water Company. That was before the Marin Municipal Water District, and the water came from, at that time, Phoenix Lake and Lagunitas Lake. It was a very poor source of water actually for fire protection.

Swensen: Did you ever actually run out of water?

McLaren: I wasn't there then, Pat. Excuse me, Pat. You're speaking of running out. Now, I might bring out something pertinent to us. But here one month ago, there was a fire at Phoenix Lake and our water district. And it went up the hill to Kent Woodlands and the fire was handled very well, very efficiently. I'm told that after the fire was out, in the top water tank there was 2500 gallons of water only in the tank. I'm talking about modern times. They had 2500 gallons. If that fire had kept coming and went after those homes, they'd have lost them all because there was 2500 gallons of water in those tanks. Water is very important.

Water and man power is very, very,

Beedle: There are several areas of water. You don't run out but you just can't get the water out of the old main to actually do any good, so that's being improved but its so costly that it takes time.

Swensen: All right. I promised we would be out by eight. We have three more minutes according to my watch. I want to thank Bill Sousa, Dick McLaren, and Bob Beedle who were marvelous, and I’m sure have many more things that we would love to near about, but we'll save it for another time because we hope to do more of this sort of thing -- to have the San Anselmo Historical Commission be more active about bringing out the sometimes colorful, sometimes dramatic, sometimes even ridiculous events of the history of our Town. If you have any ideas -- of departments, or groups, or people who would make a good focus for one of these evenings, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Thank you all for coming. I think we had a marvelous dinner thanks to the Seminary kitchen, and I bid you all a goodnight.

Coddington: I want a special round of applause for the woman who did all the work, Patricia Swensen.

Swensen: But I didn't fight any of the fires.
 

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