Fire Station No. 2

Before 1879 Corsicana had no fire department, and its only water came from cisterns at street crossings. A city fire history on the Navarro County site says merchants met that September and organized a volunteer company on December 29 as Corsicana Hose Company No. 1, with Abe Mulky as assistant chief. Lake Halbert, dug in 1923, became the main source of fire water. The next year the department turned fully professional, replacing the bell alarm with an electric system and steam pumpers with a motor truck. Firefighters won a union charter on May 4, 1965.

What the plaque says

Fire Station No. 2 The Corsicana Volunteer Fire Department was organized in Dec. 1879, with J. J. Strupper as chief. Volunteer fire fighters carried buckets before acquiring hand- and horse-drawn equipment. Fire Station No. 1, located at city hall, was first occupied in 1892 by Chief F. N. Drane, who supervised drilling of artesian wells to supply water. First Station No. 2 was built in 1902 as a substation for west Corsicana. In 1924, after protecting lives and property for 45 years, the volunteer system was replaced by the City Fire Department, which continued to use this building until 1926. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.5 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Rosenberg Family — steps away
• Judge John S. Callicutt — 0.2 mi
• Joseph S. Cullinan, Pioneer in Texas Oil — 0.2 mi
• Birthsite of Beauford H. Jester — 0.3 mi