History: Fire Horses

A fire bell rings; a fire engine, drawn by two or three large, fast horses burst out of the fire station and galloping full speed towards a fire, was an exciting sight around the turn of the 20th Century. Before the advent of the automobile, fire horses were an important part of the city fire stations from coast to coast.

They pulled fire engines, hose reels and ladder trucks. Sometimes, there were two horses harnessed side by side on the fire engine, and sometimes they were hitched three abreast. They were usually light draft horses, strong enough to pull the equipment, yet fast enough to get to the fire in a hurry.

A team of horses in the Sheridan WYO Parade

The first reference to fire horses in Wyoming was found in Bill Barlow’s Budget, Douglas November 25, 1896. – Training Fire Horses. They are Instructed to Jump when the Gong is Sounded. The training of fire horses is indeed interesting and exciting. In some of the larger cities training stables for new horses are established. In those stables the newly acquired animals are put through their paces in much the same fashion as an “awkward squad” in a military organization. A well-known authority on fire-horses says: “It is better to put a new fire horse into the stall which he is permanently to occupy at the outset. It is as necessary for a raw horse to accustom himself to new surroundings as it is for a human being to adapt himself to new conditions.“

Under the training stable system in some cities a new horse is sometimes drilled for as much as a month before he is assigned to an engine house. It very often happens that when such a training stable graduate is dually put on engine house duty, he Is so bewildered by the strangeness and unfamiliarity of his new berth that he forgets all that has been taught him in in the training stable and must be instructed all over again. The drilling of the new horses is very interesting and entertaining. The engine house gong is sounded. Tile man standing at the horse’s head pulls down the string bolt and releases the tie-strap. Standing at the rear of the stall is a fireman who slaps the horse on the haunch. Upon which the man at the horses head promptly leads him out to the pole, where he is hooked up. On the third and fourth repetition of the lesson, most horses learn what this means. The brighter animals will often get out of their own accord on the signal within twenty-four hours after their first lesson. Others, not quite so capable, will do so with in two days, and within a week the most of them get out to the pole in good style. In the course of time the horses will learn to spring to the pole at night, quite unaided, while the men are-scurrying down the sliding poles. Were it not for the brightness and alertness of the horses there could be no such thing as the getting of a fire engine or truck into the street within the almost incredibly short time of seven seconds after the first sounding of the gong. The average working life of a fire horse is three years.

(Many of the articles actually said the horses had a longer working life. One in Los Angeles was nine years old when he was pensioned off.)

Laramie The Semi-Weekly Boomerang September 24, 1906

There were occasionally problems using horses for fighting fires, like this small clip states.

The Sheridan Post, May 11, 1909

Of course, like purchasing newer and better fire trucks today, horses had to be periodically replaced as they may go lame or simply get too old for the job.

The Sheridan Enterprise, September 21, 1912 – City To Buy New Fire Wagon Team Present Team Getting Along in Years and Younger Hoses are Needed. The city authorities are looking for a fire team to replace the one in service and already have two good teams in consideration. Dick and Ben comprise the team now in use and both have been in almost constant service for the past eight years, everyone knows the fire horses and they have been on the streets many times hitched to the fire wagon, they are pets of the entire fire department. Although as willing now to respond to the tire bell as in their younger days, the fire horse’s usefulness is becoming greatly impaired and after making one run, they are hardly in condition for a second call should it come in succession. Dick is the horse who cut his foot two years ago in the pasture, but it has fully recovered.

In addition to the regular fire team the city also owns more fire horses. Chief, a sorrel horse, was donated to the department last spring by George Downer, and Jack, another bay horse, was purchased five years ago but is now almost incapacitated from work because of a lame shoulder. Both the latter horses are now on pasture. and it a suitable team can be purchased by the city they will be joined by Dick and Ben.

Sometimes, the horses did not take well to being retired from a job they loved.

Gillette News, Crook County, Friday, December 2, 1910 (Interesting, Campbell County didn’t come into being until the next year, 1911.) –Animals In Denver Department for Ten Years Run Away from Life of Ease on Ranch. Denver. —The Story of Larry and Spot, two horses which were for ten years at the fire station of Blake Street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, will appeal to all lovers of horses. Both the horses were large, white animals with black spots. They were the pets of the boys at the station.

For ten years they had run to every fire in their district, and they had learned to answer the call of the gongs with almost as much intelligence as the firemen themselves. They were never more delighted than when they were in and making their way, full speed, down the street, their bodies quivering with the excitement and joy of the run. But Larry and Spot were not young when they were put upon the fire wagons, and so, after ten years of hard service, they began to show their age and had to be sold. The firemen when they saw that they must part with their old animal friends were as sad as if two of the boys were leaving them. A farmer living about twenty miles from Denver was the buyer of the horses, and the night he went to the fire station to get the animals the heart of every fireman sank. Larry and Spot were led away with drooping heads.

There was many a fireman who had been around the station for years, and who had come to listen for the nicker of the creatures, who felt a bit lonesome that night.

Larry and Spot however, were not ready to give up their old friends, and the next morning at daybreak the men were awakened by the stamping of hoofs outside of the firehouse. One of the men sneaked down to the front of the station. There a strange sight confronted him. Larry and Spot were standing at the entrance with their noses over the chains, waiting to be admitted. Some of the firemen, when they were told of the incident by their comrade, ran down to the entrance and petted the horses.

Larry and Spot were admitted and the firemen communicated with the farmer who had purchased the animals. He arrived later and took the horses back to his ranch.

Just as the horses missed their calling as fire horses when they retired, and the firemen missed the horse drawn equipment when motorized machines replaced the horses.

The Laramie Republican (Semi-Weekly), April 9, 1921 – Firemen Lonesome for the Fire Horses of the Former Days. San Francisco, Calif, April 8. —San Francisco veteran firemen still yearn for the old fire horses. They have mentioned it to the chief. “It’s like this one driver said to-day. “You can’t get any companionship out of a gasoline engine. You cannot rub one of these locomotives we have now on the nose or get one to eat out of your hand. “In the old day I when we had bad dreams about three alarm fires, it was comforting to hear the horses munching and champing in the stalls below. It soothed us. Now we can dream on until we kick all the bedclothes off. There’s no stamping of the trusty hoofs to wake us up or the good old nicker to tell us to go back to sleep again. “Believe me, it’s lonesome in those big fire houses at night without the old boys. I wish they were back. “Did you ever see a policeman’s horse follow him around like a dog? Well, take that policeman’s horse away from him and he’s lost, that’s all. It’s the same way with a fireman.” San Francisco old firehorses are “on pension” on a farm near Martinez, far from the madding jangle of the fire alarm. And report has it that some of tho firemen “sneak away” from the houses at times and go up to the farm and talk over old times with the “old boys.”

Fire horses, just another way horses have helped man over the centuries. In war, in peace, and in recreation, horses have been one of man’s most useful animal friends.

Horse drawn ladder truck, on display in the Days of 76 museum in Deadwood, SD. Thanks