This year’s annual Austin Fire Museum and ESPADA (Emergency Services Pipes and Drums Assoc.) San Jacinto Day Celebration will be held on Saturday, April 17 at the Waterford House Austin. The San Jacinto Celebration also includes the annual Austin Fire Department Awards Ceremony. The awards are presented to Austin firefighters for acts of rescue, commendation, and community service performed in 2009. The highlight of this year’s awards ceremony will be a posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to Engine 6 Firefighter James T. Glass who died of injuries sustained at a fire on July 23, 1916.

Tickets are 30.00 each for AFD Museum Members and 35.00 each for non-members. This includes dinner, an open bar, and live entertainment featuring the GUY FORSYTH BAND. People wishing to sign up as AFD Museum members will also receive the 30.00 ticket price. In order to receive the member price, tickets must be purchased in person from any one of our ticket sales volunteer representatives. Full price tickets may be sold right here using Paypal.

In keeping with tradition, there will be a silent auction featuring many great gifts, items, and services with the proceeds benefiting ESPADA.

A very special thank you to Siddon’s Fire Apparatus for being our Underwriter for this event!

If you have a Paypal account you may purchase tickets right here, right now! Tickets purchased here will be held at the Will Call table under the name of the purchaser. After checkout, Paypal will email your receipt to you and to us. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at austinfiremuseum@gmail.com.

Tickets

One Ticket $35.00 Two Tickets $70.00 Three Tickets $105.00 Four Tickets $140.00 Five Tickets $175.00 Six Tickets $210.00

The newest artifact purchased/recovered by the Austin Fire Museum is this South Austin Fire Company #5 badge. This style of badge is consistent with many of the badges created for the Austin Fire Department fire companies during the end of the Austin volunteer era between 1900-1916.

South Austin Fire Company #5 was organized in 1895 and was located at 1315 South Congress Ave. Their company motto was “To the Rescue” and their territory consisted of all of the area south of the Colorado River.

A special thanks to Austin Fire Capt. David Leonard (Quint 19 B-shift) for bringing the sale of this irreplaceable piece of Austin Fire Department history to our attention so that we could be in a position to purchase it. Thanks again Dave!

Also, thank you very much to all of our over 200 Austin Fire Museum members. It is through your financial support that we are able to have the funds necessary to purchase items of our history when they become available. Since 2005, the Austin Fire Museum has purchased well over 30 historical items such as this South Austin 5 badge due to the consistent support of our members. Thank you.

Central Fire Station 1960

Old Central Fire Station 1920’s

Fire Station 3 1964

Old Fire Station 3 1930’s

Year Organized: 1896

Year Disbanded: Became Engine 3 of the paid department in 1916

Motto: To Preserve Life and Property

North Austin Fire Company Number 6 organized on August 1, 1896, by the citizens of North Austin, principally from the 5th and 6th wards.

At the time, this area was Austin´s first suburb, named Hyde Park. H. E. Seekatz was appointed as the company´s first foreman. They initially occupied an old wooden building at the corner of 30th and Rio Grande Streets.

Sometime during 1905 or 1906, the company built a two-story brick fire hall at 3002 Guadalupe Street. The building still stands today just north of the University of Texas campus.

In 1912, the City of Austin purchased its first motorized fire engine for North Austin Fire Company 6. As early as the 1870´s the City of Austin was purchasing a majority of the equipment and paying the apparatus drivers while the personnel remained volunteer.

In 1915, Thomas Quinn of North Austin Fire Company 6 was killed in the line of duty while trying to rescue two young boys from the area of Shoal Creek and West 6th Street during one of Austin´s notorious flash floods. Fireman Quinn successfully rescued the boys before he was swept away.

In 1916, when the department transitioned from volunteer to paid, North Austin Number 6 was renamed Fire Station 3 (now referred to as “Old Fire Station 3“). This station also housed the fire department mechanic and spare equipment and was commonly referred to as the fire department shops. Fire Station 3 and the shops simultaneously occupied 3002 Guadalupe until a new Fire Station 3 was built in 1957 at 201 West 30th Street. The shops continued to occupy the old fire hall through the 1970´s. For more than 25 years (c.1980-2008) 3002 Guadalupe had been home to Ballet Austin. The downstairs portion of the building was used for administration and the upstairs was the dance studio. Now that Ballet Austin has vacated the building, 3002 Guadalupe has returned to the Austin Fire Department. In April 2010, Austin Fire Department Fire Investigations Division is scheduled to move in to the 1906 former fire station.

With the return of the 3002 Guadalupe fire station, the Austin Fire Department now operates two fire stations that are over 100 years old and date back to the horse-drawn era of firefighting. Fire Station 4, originally West Austin No. 7 and built in 1908, is the other station that originally housed horses and is currently operating as an AFD fire station.