The Beginnings of the Bossier City Fire Department –A Coming of Age Story

Devastating downtown fires on the night of June 23, 1925, spurred many changes in Bossier City. Like the precipitating event in a coming-of-age novel, this event impelled Bossier City into a new level of maturity as a municipality.

On the night of June 23, 1925, a fire began in a feed barn belonging to mayor Tom Hickman. The flames moved through homes on Colquitt Street and then the blaze reached the business section of Bossier City, located on Cane Street (now Barksdale Boulevard). The fire made quick work of the wooden structures. The wind carried embers several blocks, bringing people to the roofs of their homes with water buckets, mops, and sacks to stifle any flames.

Bossier did not have its own fire department, so the Shreveport fire department sent a pumper truck full of water across the river. The truck did not stop at the Traffic Street tollbooth on the bridge to pay its nickel, so the toll attendants shot at it, puncturing the water tank. The bridge soon became so crowded that the toll operators had to give up, people streamed across from Bossier and spectators from Shreveport watched the blaze. Bossier City’s water supply was very low due to a recent drought. The fire might have been extinguished if water were available. A bucket brigade led by the Shreveport firefighters was the only way to slowly contain the flames. The fire caused over $100,000 worth of damage in the area.

Losses included Tom Hickman’s store, the post office building, the Hutchings Hotel, the Tilman Furniture Store, the Bossier City Insurance Agency, Montez Picture Show, Carter-Pulley Drug Company, the Shoe Hospital, the Marlin Garage, the State Highway Commission Garage, the Moseley home, the Mahaffey home, a church, a row of nine tenant houses, and a lodge. The entire block on the north side of Cane Street was razed.

Insurance rates were high due to the lack of water, so many buildings carried no or only partial insurance. Two-thirds of the losses were not covered by insurance. The June 25, 1925 issue of the “Bossier Banner” newspaper called the water situation in Bossier City “deplorable.” Two bond issues to supply the city with a waterworks system had been voted, but due to litigation and political disputes they had not been utilized. The Banner noted that “the gentlemen that would oppose or hinder the completion of waterworks in Bossier City should be transported far beyond the deep blue sea.”

After the fires of June 23rd, city leaders worked to bring a modern water system and a new fire alarm system to the people of Bossier. A volunteer fire brigade organized in 1926 and the first fire station was built on Cane Street in 1928, as a fire truck bay within the Bossier City Municipal Building/City Hall. Bossier’s first paid firefighters started in 1932. By 1951 the first fire substation was built on Waller Street, and in 1952, a new stand-alone Central Station was built next to the Municipal Building until a new Central Station opened in 1984 within the present-day Bossier City municipal complex.

Two of the early downtown Bossier fire stations still stand and remain reminders of a community’s need to provide for its own safety. The old Bossier City Hall houses the Bossier Arts Council (BAC). Their Emerging Artist Gallery occupies the firetruck bay. Next door to the BAC is the Flying Heart Brewery in the 1952 Bossier City Central Fire Station. In front of that building still stands a magnolia tree and plaque dedicated to the firefighters from that station and the municipal workers who lost their lives in a tragic sewer accident in 1963.

We would like to expand our collection of fire department and police department material. If you have photographs, papers, uniforms, or other items relating to firefighters or police officers in Bossier Parish, please consider donating them to the Historical Center or simply making them available to scan. Contact us at 318-746-7717 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org or visit us at 2206 Beckett St., Bossier City. We are now open: M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. For other intriguing facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/. Visit the Bossier Parish Libraries’ YouTube channel to see a “virtual tour” of the Bossier Arts Council/old Bossier City Municipal Building https://youtu.be/1uF2gCzS1lo. 
And we’d like to use this as an opportunity to wish all the best to Bossier Arts Council’s departing executive director, Robin Jones!

Image 1:American LaFrance pumper fire truck.  1st pumper equipment bought by Bossier City for Fire Department. Captain Ennis M. Tipton, far left. Standing on the side of the vehicle in full fire dept. dress uniform is Chief Nathan S. Huff, and Harold Roy is seated in the driver's seat. C. 1932

Image 2: Bossier City Fire Department Letterhead, Bossier City, Louisiana.  F. M. Smith, first fulltime fire dept. chief.

Article by: Pam Carlisle