| Station 4 (Headquarters) - 2374 Whitney Avenue |
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The historical outline below is taken from the program for
the Second Annual Hamden Firemen's Memorial Service,
held at Memorial Town Hall on June 10, 1934.
The History Committee for the event consisted of
Messrs. Ralph Eno, Michael J. Whalen, and Harold G. Emerson.
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| Station 4 - c. 1925 (Photo courtesy of Wayne Chorney) |
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This is what Station 4 looked like before the bay doors faced Whitney Avenue. Construction to move the bay doors from the School Street side of the building to the Whitney Avenue side began in November 1939. Official Town of Hamden stationery continued to show a rendering of the pre-1939 configuration until well into the 1970s.
The building next door with the American Legion billboard is still standing, although the billboard is long gone. The building is scheduled for demolition in conjunction with the currently anticipated renovations to Station 4.
This previously unpublished photo was taken by an employee of the United Advertising Co. around 1925. The original negative was discovered in a Whalley Avenue antique store several years ago.
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Old view of Station 4 bay doors.
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| 1938 - Squad i.f.o. old Station 4 bay doors (Photo by G. Donald Steele) |
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| 1938 - Rear view of 1938 Seagrave Canopy Cab pumper i.f.o. old Station 4 bay doors (Photo by G. Donald Steele) |
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The Alarm Room at Station 4 was built when the fire station was reconstructed in 1939-40. The alarm system was moved from Station 2 to Station 4 in May of 1941.
The circuit board pictured in the background was for the Gamewell telegraph alarm system. It was replaced by a newer console in the late 1960s. The Gamewell system remained a part of the town-wide fire alarm system until the early 1990s. Note the old-fashioned "candlestick" telephone sitting on the file cabinet and the wooden magneto ringer box mounted on the back wall. These instruments were part of the inter-station communications system that was replaced in 1981, when SNET installed the Horizon telephone system as part of the conversion to Central Communications.
Inaugurated on November 19, 1981, Central Communications combined dispatching for fire and police in the basement of the former Miller Library building.
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| 1963 - Chief Dispatcher Wilbur Baker answers the telephone while D/C Training Officer Daniel Hume looks on. The window between the Alarm Room and the apparatus floor was added in the late 1950s. |
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After the horrendous June flood of 1982, the fire department purchased several metal flat bottom rowboats. One of them (pictured above) was stored at Station 4, suspended from the ceiling above Engine 4. On a warm summer night in 1983, when boredom overcame a one-horned prankster who was stationed there, the tiny vessel was christened with stick-on letters as a tribute to a non-uniformed department member. The boat still hung there well into the 1990s. (Is it still there?)
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All photos on this website not otherwise in the Public Domain, as well as all commentary,
are © Copyright 2009 by the Hamden Fire Retirees' Assn.
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