GET IN TOUCH
ABOUT
OUR BEGINNING
One April evening, over one-hundred years ago, a small group of men sat down at a meeting in the newly incorporated Borough of Denver, Pennsylvania. Their meeting was for the purpose of organizing a volunteer fire company.
At that time, before telephones, automobiles, and mechanical fire-fighting equipment, once a fire started, it was often uncontrollable. Fear of fire and the lack of facilities for controlling it, was in the minds of the borough incorporators in 1900.
The crude method of extinguishing fires, carrying well and creek water great distances, brought people to realize the need for a common water system. They figured the community would have to be incorporated.
So, the community was incorporated, and the Borough Council laid plans for a water system. The system was almost completed when the little group of men interested in starting a fire company held its first meeting.
FIRST OFFICERS
CHARTER MEMBERS
COMPANY LEADERS
FIRE CHIEFS
SERVICE AWARDS
FIRE HALLS
RAILROAD ALLEY
The first meetings were held in the office of Dr. W. D. Fink, physician and burgess. Later the company rented and finally bought a building for $1,100 in Railroad Alley, once belonging to Alvin W. Mentzer, known as Mentzer’s Hall. Other borough organizations also used the building for meetings. At one time Borough Council had a cell installed, so law violators could be locked up overnight before being transported to Lancaster for hearings. In 1915, the men began discussing building a new fire hall.
FIFTTH & MAIN STREET
In 1922, the membership purchased a parcel of land at Fifth and Main Streets and began construction of a $23,000 building, with the firemen doing some of the work in their spare time. The building was dedicated on May 1, 1926, to which the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the fire company helped beautify the new building. The Ladies’ Auxiliary donated substantial sums of money to the fire company and helped with the interior decorating.
After the fire hall was built, it became the most widely used public building in town – a meeting place for the Borough Council, Lions Club, and Boy Scout Troop. It also became the home of many other temporary and permanent groups, as well as, becoming the scene of many community suppers, lectures, and entertainments. The house siren itself was not only for fires, but to also announce noontime on Saturdays, mock air raids during World War II, and 11 A.M. each Armistice Day.
Plans for remodeling the fire hall started in 1961, followed by plans for building a new fire hall, starting in October 1962. The plans for the new hall were accepted April 13,1964 and the construction of the new fire hall was started in May of 1964.
LOCUST STREET
On February 10, 1965, the fire company moved into the new hall on Locust Street and dedicated it on June 13, 1965. On December 16, 1968, the note was paid and burned by the Ladies’ Auxiliary and firemen with great pride and joy in our accomplishments, thanking firemen and citizens and industry for their support in achieving this goal.
Since 1965, as in the past, the present facility has been used by various civic organizations, community events and social gatherings.
CONTACT US
