The Fire Hose Cart

It's been around forever.  Bouncing around different establishments, in and out of storage, its large size makes it both a wonder and an inconvenience.  The old Washington Fire Department hose cart has somehow survived 100+ years of moving and shifting and remains a wonderful snapshot of old Washington.

If it could talk, it could tell you all about the burning of the original TP&W depot in 1902, the Esser building fire of 1920, or the 1895 Sun Plant explosion. 

The cart could date back to the fire department's beginnings in the mid-1880s, when it was their only equipment.  They likely used this cart until more advanced portable machinery became available in the early 1920s.  Washington would not get its first fire engine until 1924.

When the fire department no longer needed the hose cart, they gave it to the Dickinson canning factory for use in case of fire.  At some point, the cart made its way to the home of Herman Gross, longtime fireman and multi-term fire chief of Washington, where it was stored for a while.  Below Chief Gross is pictured behind the wheel of the city truck in 1948, along with (L-R) Chet Brunnenmeyer, Wilbur Shell, and Pat Brill.

Gross gave the cart to Essig Chevrolet at 501 Walnut Street.  That business operated there from 1945 to 1950.  The cart remained on that property through multiple business changes, including Mary Rachel Antiques, which operated at 501 Walnut from 1971-1989.  When Harold & Mary Levery sold the property in 1988/89, they donated the cart to the Washington Historical Society.  Society members Roger Saunders and Clarence MacBride refurbished the cart, and it was first displayed in 1991.  It was then stored in the Legion Road fire house.

In 1996, the fire hose cart was displayed in the new firehouse on Wilmor Road.  Later that year, it was loaned to Wheels of Time Museum.

As of 1999, the cart was back in the hands of the Historical Society, being stored in the carriage house at 105 Zinser Place.

Through unknown circumstances, the cart then passed into private hands.  In 2015, Tom & Judy Gross donated the cart back to the Historical Society.  Scott Weaver then scraped it, and M. Perdue Painting sandblasted and painted it.  It was displayed on July 18, 2015, at a Historical Society Car Show and in October at the William Holland Days celebration, both events held in front of the old Historical Society headquarters on Zinser Place.

The Historical Society kept the cart in storage since then until an appropriate place for display can be found.