Lampasas Volunteer Fire Department

Fire shaped the town before there was a department to fight it. In December 1871 the frame courthouse burned with most of the county's records. The Park Hotel, the resort that had made Lampasas famous, burned in 1895, and the college housed there closed with it. Later firefighters met a different danger: on July 30, 1962, a fire at the Lampasas Ice and Produce Company set off several explosions and released dangerous ammonia fumes over the town.

What the plaque says

Lampasas Volunteer Fire Department Beginning with two hose-reel companies and one hook and ladder company in late 1880's this department has been constantly on call. Has fought many serious blazes; assisted during several disastrous floods. On Christmas Eve, the big red trucks carry food and clothing to the needy. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.7 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 18 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 26 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church — steps away
• Horrell-Higgins Feud — steps away
• Gunfight at the Lampasas Saloon — steps away
• First State Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas — steps away