By Tina and Bill Dickson, Mukilteo Historical Society
We take so much for granted. Today, when we are faced with a fire or a medical emergency, we simply dial 911 and a fire truck or other emergency vehicle should arrive within seven minutes.
Mukilteo history from the early 1900s tells stories of using a bucket brigade to extinguish fires. Imagine using pails of water to put out a house fire. With no fire department, it was up to the residents of the city to help with the water buckets. Before the 1920s, that’s how things were done.
In the early 1920s water mains were installed in Mukilteo, leading to a significant change for fighting fires. Some of the men in town organized to volunteer as firefighters. They obtained two red carts. Each one had two 5-foot diameter steel wheels. A hose reel was installed between the wheels for carrying fire hoses.
Now that they had fire-fighting equipment, the volunteers established the Mukilteo Volunteer Fire Department. The carts were kept in a garage near Third and Park streets. A siren was installed at the garage as a way of alerting the volunteers that they were needed for a fire. When notified of a fire, Mrs. Pugh, who lived nearby, would run across the street to the garage to push the siren button.
Marvin Wilson, who was the police chief, fire chief, and head of the street department eventually ran a wire from the garage to Mrs. Pugh’s house so that she wouldn’t have to brave the elements and could sound the siren from her home.
When the siren sounded, it could be heard all over town. The volunteers went to the garage to get the fire carts. Two men were needed to pull the cart and two men were behind the cart holding ropes to act as a brake. The hills of Mukilteo were a challenge for this fire operation. The volunteers soon began using cars to tow the carts.
With the limited resources of the day, it is no surprise that several early landmarks of Mukilteo were destroyed by fire. In the era of the bucket brigade, Chandler Drug Store burned in 1915 and the Sherar residence at Third and Loveland was destroyed by fire in 1916.
Even with Mukilteo fire carts and the Volunteer Fire Department, the Klemp Hotel burned to the ground in 1926. The Everett Fire Department was called to assist the Mukilteo volunteers at the original Rose Hill School fire in 1928, but the building could not be saved. Another big fire in Mukilteo’s history was that of the Crown Lumber Mill in 1938.
The volunteers built a new fire station on the corner of Third and Park in the 1930s across the street from the old fire garage. In 1938, Mukilteo purchased a 1933 Chevrolet truck and added a flatbed to it for carrying hoses and ladders to use for firefighting. The siren was still in use to notify the volunteers.
Mukilteo purchased their first new fire truck in 1943. Communications continued to improve in the 1940s. Special phones were installed in the homes of the volunteer firefighters, where their wives could take the emergency calls and activate the siren.
Later, radios were installed in police and fire vehicles so drivers could communicate with each other and headquarters. In the 1950s, volunteers were given a Plectron for their home, which is a specialized emergency alerting radio receiver, activated by a dispatch center. When the Plectron was activated, a voice message would give the type of emergency and address to all of the volunteers.
As the firefighting equipment became more sophisticated, so did the communication system. Also, there was a need for a faster response to fires and other emergencies. Beginning in 1992, Mukilteo began hiring full-time career firefighters. Over the years, the volunteer program was phased out.
Mukilteo now has two fully staffed stations housing the fire apparatus and emergency vehicles. Because of the 9-1-1 system and the digital pagers that the firefighters carry, our citizens receive a very rapid response from the time the 9-1-1 dispatch center is notified until they are on the scene.
There have been many significant changes in the fire service from Mrs. Pugh to the 9-1-1 dispatch system.
Originally published in the 12/4/2019 issue of the Mukilteo Beacon.