I don’t know what brought it to mind, but somehow the design and use of hose towers invaded my thoughts. The term “hose tower” is really a fairly modern term because that’s about all we use them for these days…… hanging and drying fire hose.
Over the past 250 years or so, those towers that are attached to, or nearby, fire houses have had several functions. One of their original uses was a watch tower. A watchman was assigned to sit up there and keep a constant watch over the town looking for hostile smoke. Up through the first half of the 19th century, buildings were mostly limited to two stories and a 30-ft. tower was sufficient as a lookout point.
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Later on the tower added the function of housing the fire bell. Originally the fire bell was located on the ground and not always at the firehouse. More often than not the “bell” was a large circular iron strap with a gap in the circumference that was struck with a hammer and would send a distinctive sound throughout the village. A true bell as we think of it today was very expensive and few towns could afford something like that. The fire alarm was usually located in the town square or a similarly convenient location and whoever first discovered the fire would run to the fire bell and sound the alarm.
Later on, as the towns would grow, the fire stations were constantly manned and the fire bell was kept there, eventually being placed in the tower where it could be heard for greater distances.
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The invention and practical application of the telegraph in 1844 brought a major change in the method of transmitting a fire alarm. In 1852 Boston installed the nation’s first fire telegraphy system where street boxes sent a signal to FD headquarters and the dispatcher would then transmit a dispatch signal to the relevant fire stations. By 1900 virtually every large town and all cities had a street telegraph system and the fire bell’s usage was curtailed.
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Around the same time that the electric telegraph was coming into usage, the construction method of fire hoses was changing, too. Instead of long strips of leather sewn into tubes, the fire service took advantage of the industrial revolution and had fire hoses woven on the massive looms of the knitting mills. But these new fabric hoses needed to be thoroughly dried after they got wet or else mildew fungus and insect infestation would take over and ruin them. So after the watchman came down and set up shop in the watch room, and the big bell was silenced, the towers were put back into service as hose-drying facilities.
In the 1950’s and 60’s an attempt was made to discontinue the use of the hose towers by drying the sections in these big electrically-powered heating cabinets. But they were huge kilowatt burners and cumbersome to use because the hose couldn’t be tightly wound when laid inside. The hose-drying cabinet system, while still used by a few, failed to become popular and here we are….still using that distinctive and identifiable hose tower.
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I can see by that glazed look that I’ve bored you enough for this morning, so let’s get the equipment checked out. I’ll go start the coffee. That’ll wake you up.
For a history of the Boston fire alarm telegraph system, click HERE.
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