FIRE DEPARTMENT HAD THREE STALLS

Let's start off with some sundry comments on this Sunday. The flowering trees on Superior St. sure looked beautiful the past couple of weeks. They were planted when Leroy Schmidt was our City Engineer. Our unusual weather in the ‘80s during the month of March certainly was enjoyable. Mark your calendars for Saturday May 5 at 8 am. Community volunteers will be placing flags on the graves of our veterans in Riverside Cemetery. It is well organized and the more volunteers we have, the easier the task will be. Meet at the cemetery office. With all of the budget cuts, there is only one person now working at the Cemetery, as the prisoner program has been discontinued. It will be a monumental task to keep it clean and mowed this season. If you can help keep your family plot(s) clean, that would make a big difference. During a heavy rainstorm this past week, I noticed all of the puddles that formed on our brick Superior St. where it is uneven and/or sinking. Normally water on a street should run off to the curbs.

Now for this week's topic. As our Albion Public Safety Department moved the fire-fighting apparatus to the new fire station a few years ago, we are reminded that the old fire station became obsolete as the trucks became bigger. When City Hall and the fire station were built in the 1930s, the fire trucks were smaller then. There were three stalls for fire trucks. Each had an arched entranceway amidst the beautiful sandstone façade. Later the arches were replaced with just a higher flat brace on the top in order to accommodate the higher trucks.

From our Historical Notebook this week we present a photo showing the original arches on the entrance to the Albion Fire Department. Notice the vintage of the trucks, and the sandstone façade. The same sandstone used for City Hall was the same sandstone used to build St. John's Catholic Church on E. Cass St., and the fireplace in Mayor Norman H. Wiener's house. How many of our readers remember these arches at the Albion Fire Department?

	Frank Passic — Albion Historian An Albion native and 1971 graduate of Albion High School, Frank Passic has been researching and writing Albion history since 1976. He is the creator of the Albion Historical Notebook, with hundreds of articles appearing weekly in the Morning Star and The Recorder. Frank maintains an extensive personal archive including Riverside Cemetery records, family surname files, genealogies, photographs, city directories, and high school yearbooks. Support his 2026 research at the Historic Albion Michigan Facebook page. Historical Notebook \| From the Archives \| Subject List \| 100 Years Ago \| Alphabetical Index \| Frank Passic Home Page \| Albion History Books \| Contact Frank
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