Sixty years ago, Maple Valley was a small community transitioning from its mining, logging and farming roots to being a bedroom destination for Seattle and the likes. Farms sprouted houses instead of cattle and gardens; cabins were springing up along the banks of the Cedar River. It had everything it needed – grocery store, restaurant, gas station and barber shop, BUT NO fire department. If a building caught on fire it just burned to the ground.
In May 1950, it was learned there was a fire engine for sale for $1000 in the town of Blaine. There weren’t too many people in the Valley in those days who could afford that kind of money; but three fellows, Frank Sayers, Joe Mezzavilla and Casss Russell, got together with a bank in Renton and signed a note borrowing the $1000.
A trip was made to Blaine to purchase the engine sight unseen. Two men, Walt Patterson, who later became the first fire chief, and Tom Norris, soon to become assistant chief, drove it all the way from the Canadian border with no top on the cab. Their arrival in the Valley drew quite a crowd to see the 1926 Howard Cooper fire engine with red paint, shiny chrome, red lights flashing, complete with a bell, ladders and open air bucket seats. The engine was a pumper carrying hose, water and fire-fighting equipment.
The next problem was finding a place to keep the engine. Frank Bagnariol offered to temporarily house it in an unused stall at his Shell station. A hole was cut in the wall separating the fire station from the gas station in which a fire phone was placed.
Bill Harshfield, whose memories are the foundation for this article, said he would probably never forget the phone number – General GE 2-4141. He was a member of the original Maple Valley Volunteer Fire Department; served as assistant fire chief and became fire chief for 19 years.
What they got for their $1000 was a 24-year-old engine that had been used in a city with hydrants so only had a 150 gallon water tank; (they soon added another 100 galslons); it didn’t have hydraulic brakes. If one was traveling 30 miles per hour, which was about tops, it was difficult to stop. The headlights were poor and soon changed to seal beams. The siren was a dandy and could be heard for miles…additional hoses were scrounged from the forest service.
The unit was to serve anyone in the area not already being served by a fire district: Namely, it would adjoin Renton on the north, Black Diamond District No. 17 on the south, Issaquah District No. 10 and the Seattle Water shed on the east and Kent District No.37 and Spring Glen District No. 40 on the west. An area approximately 60 square miles.
There were still the challenges of who will they get to man the engine and how were they going to pay the bank for the mortgage?
They had about 20 men with absolutely no fire experience rounded up and found that Renton had an identical rig on standby and their fire chief volunteered to come and give them some pointers.
Ironically, on the very first day of their training they had two alarms. The first one didn’t work out very well as they lost a Finnish steam bathhouse in Hobart, but the second one turned out better. It was a dwelling on the old Chapman road. That house we saved.
Finding the locations of the fires was another challenge as there were no street, avenues or addresses. The roads had names like Sahlin, Reid ranch, Hobart Cemetery, Lake Francis, Maxwell, Cedar Grove, Jones, Cedar Mountain, and Peter Grubb. When putting out an alarm they often had to give necessary landmarks such as “go by Peacock’s barn to second driveway on the right.”
The original station had a small siren mounted on the roof of the garage with a start and stop button by the phone. When an alarm was received, the button was pushed and several women had a list of five personnel they called. No such thing as radios, home receivers or pagers.
The booklet of Harshfield’s memoirs is full of newspaper articles outlining the heroic deeds of these volunteers.
The community rallied behind the department and sold tickets to the Firemen’s Balls to pay off the bank. Volunteer labor eventually built a fire hall on Highway 169. Two new fire engines were added and the volunteer fire department became King County Fire District No. 43. The Howard Cooper was sent to Station No. 2 at Ravensdale. It was sold to a logging company in 1955 and put out to pasture in 1968.
One year later, the citizens of Maple Valley once again purchased the engine, now rusted, that had served from 1950-55. It was lovingly restored by volunteers and in 1985 plans were laid to build a permanent home for it.
Today, the 1926 Howard Cooper resides in its very own museum behind the Maple Valley Community Center and is open the first Saturday of every month for viewing. It is also the site of programs for the historical society, the next one being 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday Feb. 19 about the Sizemore family.
