Goodrich - Long Beach Fire Department

The board of trustees called for a citizens meeting on May 27, 1902, and asked Los Angeles fire commissioner Jacob Kuhrts to speak on the necessity of an organized and well-trained fire department. J. F. Corbert was elected chief and H. D. Wilson assistant chief, but both had to resign due to business commitments. The fire department was again reorganized. The new chief was J. E. Shrewsbury, and N. C. Lollich became the assistant chief. G. C. Craw was elected as foreman of Hose Company No. 1, J. H. Morgan as foreman of Hose Company No. 2, and E. O. Dorsett as foreman of the Hook and Ladder. Chief J. E. Shrewsbury is standing on the left of the bottom row and G. C. Craw is on the right of the bottom row. The rest are unknown.

Chief Joseph E. Shrewsbury was elected chief in 1902, and remained in that position until his untimely death in 1916. The chief died in an automoblie accident while responding to a false alarm.

Hose Company No. 1 was placed behind city hall. In this photograph, city hall is in the background and the Hose Company No. 1 is decorated for the Fourth of July celebration. The people are unidentified.

Seen here is city hall about 1909, with the fire alarm bell in the background. Before 1906, Hose Company No. 1 was stored behind city hall.

Hose Company No. 2 was housed in a shed in an alley.

There is a story that when the ladder crew was running to a fire they caught up with a trolley. They hopped on board the trolley and towed the ladder behind. When they got to the fire, the citizens riding the trolley helped put out the fire. This happened between 1902, when the department purchased the hand-drawn ladder, and 1906, when the horse-drawn ladder was purchased.

A fire at the Long Beach Pavilion prompted a $30,000 bond to be passed for the building of a central fire station, pictured here about 1906, and the purchase of fire alarm boxes, a steam engine, a hose wagon, a hook and ladder, and seven horses.

Chief Shrewsbury is shown resetting an alarm box with the hose wagon and the steam engine in the background. The first alarm box pulled in the newly installed alarm system was box no. 23.

In 1907, the LBFD borrowed a Rambler from Frank Craig for testing and soon after purchased two Rambler chassis. Assistant Chief Craw was in charge of fitting both with chemical tanks and hoses. The department also had the distinction of being the first fire department on the West Coast to operate motorized fire equipmentbeating Los Angeles by three months. In this picture, Chief Shrewsbury is standing to the far left and Assistant Chief Craw is fourth from the left.

This is a c . 1909 list of firemen and their salaries.

This is the Long Beach Pier and boardwalk in 1909. Tourism was the main industry at this time, and the population was about 23,000.

The horse-drawn hook and ladder is near the corner of Pine Avenue and Ocean Boulevard. The fire department operated three teams of horses and a seventh horse as a spare to fill in when one of the others had a day off. The names of the horses where Tom and Jerry, who pulled the Metropolitan steam engine; King and Prince, who pulled the hose wagon; and Major and Colonel, who pulled the ladder truck. Barney was the seventh horse.

This is the fire fund tally from the 1909 city audit report, showing fire department expenses for that year.