“We care about our history here,” notes Chief Greg Mathis. “The department has a long history in the community; it’s made up of community members, and we serve the community.” Mathis is speaking to a dozen or so college students, one of the many tours he does to educate the public about the department. “Indeed,” he continues, “we are celebrating our 100th Anniversary on May 17, and this is a perfect time to highlight our time serving the community.”
In 1925, Huntsville was at a crossroads. In the years following World War I, this town of fewer than four-thousand residents was still comfortable in its 19th century origins.
It was a sleepy town. In a rare mention, The Houston Chronicle noted on May 1, 1925 that berry-pickers from Huntsville had been alarmed by a “great panther” that was, apparently, still prowling among the backwaters outside of Houston. The Huntsville Item could still offer observations, without fear of reader blowback, that there is “no need in telling a girl her hair looks like a mop—too many of them nowadays don’t know what a mop looks like.” And the chair of the Texas Penitentiary Commission openly considered moving the State’s “central prison” from Huntsville, which he described as “about as inaccessible place as could be found.”
But in this “inaccessible place,” citizens had found capable leaders. Thomas Ball was mayor; A.T. McKinney was county judge; and C.E. Bobbitt, a relatively recent resident of Huntsville, had nonetheless established himself as a local business owner. They, and the citizens of Huntsville, would have a busy year.
The leaders had some momentum. In early 1924, the county’s voters faced a massive bond issue, a $1,500,000 road bond. “If HELL is PAVED with GOOD INTENTIONS,” noted The Huntsville Item, “Let’s pave Walker County With CEMENT.” The voters agreed, approving the bond two-to-one, in what the Item referred to as an “awakening.” A chamber of commerce was established, with Sam McKinney serving as its inaugural director. Huntsville’s first traffic signals were installed in early November. Serious discussions began on the need for modernization: a new hotel—plans that would culminate the next year as the “Keep Hotel”; the desire for a city park and playground; and the necessity of an up-to-date hospital for “the growth of Huntsville.”
Perhaps the most important decision of 1925, however, was to re-organize and professionalize the city’s fire services.
There have always been fire services, of a sort, in Walker County. A Dallas Morning News article from 1887 mentions a fire that was squelched by “the heroic efforts of citizens and the Huntsville Fire Company.” But these volunteers, no matter how civic-minded, were working with rudimentary water lines. Indeed, as late as the 1880s, the city was largely reliant on natural springs for its water supply, limiting the department to pumping approximately 75 gallons per hour.
The Huntsville City Council contracted with the Huntsville Unit to gain access to four fire plugs around the courthouse square in 1893, and a true water-line system was developed over the next three decades, with the first line running connecting 8th Street to what was then Sam Houston Normal Institute.
Unfortunately, this new water supply did little to help things in 1899, when a fire damaged the Huntsville Unit. With a record low of -4 degrees, the pipes were frozen, and the prison hospital burned. Such were the vagaries of a primitive infrastructure and a purely volunteer “Fire Company.”
But with modernization reforms afoot in the mid-1920s, the city moved to a more tightly structured fire unit. In 1925, city council launched a “re-organization” of the department, appointing Chief C.E. Bobbitt to supervise the work of a team of volunteers, who, in turn, were greeted with a renewed investment in training. Council members also purchased new equipment. They acquired a new fire truck, one that could pump 500 gallons of water per minute—a 400-fold increase over the pumping capacity of the 1880s. And for added security, council installed an “electric siren” in the “courthouse tower.”
Progress begat progress: in the late 1920s, the city purchased two new fire trucks, including a 1928 model Seagraves City Service Ladder Truck. That truck can be seen today in parades and on display in the city’s Fire Station #2. In 1929, the Department’s organizational structure was further supported by an actual physical structure: a two-story City Hall / Fire Department was constructed on Eleventh Street.
These improvements showed immediate results. The volunteers—unpaid except for the waiver of street taxes—were described by The Huntsville Item as men “who have a pride in Huntsville and a desire to see the city progress.” The fire records suggest this narrative was not merely a hometown paper’s hyperbole: the participation rate of the twenty-plus volunteers exceeded eighty percent. This volunteer model served Huntsville well for approximately three quarters of a century, even in the face of epic fires.
On January 21, 1954, Major Gibson, an African-American inmate who worked as a trustee for TDCJ Director O. B. Ellis, spotted flames and smoke coming from the upper floors of the First Baptist Church. He and other trustees went to work as makeshift first responders, armed only with a garden hose. “I have known these good Baptist folks for 20 years,” Gibson noted, “and have watched them build a fine church. When I saw flames…I knew they needed help and needed it quick.”
They needed a lot of help: firemen from Conroe, Trinity, Willis, Madisonville, and Country Campus traveled to help. Citizens also assisted, and one of those, a “Sam Houston College” student, James Davis, Jr., lost his life while trying to save church possessions. The church, too, was reduced to ashes, settling in the dust on which it had risen in the mid-1920s.
A similar tragedy struck on Christmas Eve 1968, when the courthouse caught fire. An alert janitor reported the fire, but the conflagration had already damaged the siren housed in the courthouse tower, and no effective all-alert could be issued. The delay was devastating: the building suffered $300,000 in damages; it was destroyed.
An even greater disaster befell the community in 1982, when the historic Old Main was reduced to ruins. The structure, which had been described as “the most beautiful in the state,” was also a firetrap. Shortly after the first spark found kindling, the building burned with an ineluctable momentum, blazing for twenty-two hours and smoldering for days more. Firefighter (and later Chief) Tom Grisham remembers it as “devastating” and “the most emotionally exhausting” fire response in his career—a career that lasted almost half a century.
While the peculiarities and severity of these fires likely would have resulted in complete destruction under any organizational structure, some of the department’s limitations in resources were beginning to show. As late as the 1960s, firemen were still being equipped with rubber boots and rain slickers, as though they were fighting rain rather than fire. In the 1970s, Huntsville Fire Station #1 (on 14th Street and Avenue M) had to discontinue its siren, because the dispatcher, who lived across the street, could not be heard over the sound of the siren. And at the time of the Old Main fire, the Department only had three full-time firemen.
By the turn of the century, the city was again facing calls for modernization. Consultants suggested the addition of fire stations, purchasing new and improved equipment, and adding professional firefighters. They were less vocal on how to finance such improvements.
But over time, and under the leadership of several city councils, city managers, and fire chiefs, positive change has occurred. There are now four fire stations; 27 full-time firefighters, complemented by 30 volunteers; and a fleet that includes four fire engines, two ladder trucks, two tank trucks, as well as numerous specialized and support vehicles. A new fire engine should be added by 2027, with a new ladder truck in place by 2028.
And while the National Fire Protection Association’s standards suggest that Huntsville still needs more full-time firefighters, the city’s recent investment in the department is promising, perhaps best exemplified by the recent (2021) completion of a new fire station on Sam Houston Avenue, which features state-of-the-art training facilities, sleeping quarters, administrative offices, and five truck bays. The station, notes Chief Mathis, “will serve the needs of the city for years to come.”
Looking Ahead
Mathis’ optimism keeps him looking to—and planning for—the future. He stresses being proactive about future needs, while highlighting his priority of achieving a fully staffed fire department.
But, as always, he displays a keen appreciation for the department’s history. Indeed, it was at his request that the 1928 firetruck—still running, always shiny—is on display in the front of Fire Station #2, where Chief Mathis often begins his tours of the station. “We’ve been serving the community a long time,” Mathis recaps, “and, God-willing, we will continue to do so.”
The Huntsville Fire Department will celebrate its 100th Anniversary on May 17, 2025. The city will post information and updates on social media, and interested citizens can learn more by calling 936-291-3047.
(Many thanks to Barbara Kievit-Mason and the University Archives / Thomason Room at Sam Houston State University. Chrissy Biello was the primary researcher for this article.)
Postcards Magazine
936-293-1188
PO Box 690
Huntsville, TX 77342
