Pentwater Fire Department Steam Pumper Engine
The Pentwater Fire Department and the Oceana Steam Pumper Engine 1872
In the early days of the village, the Pentwater Bucket Brigade was organized in 1864 to fight fires. By March 4, 1872, the now-incorporated village passed an ordinance establishing the Pentwater Fire Department. William B. O. Sands served as the Chief Engineer. By 1871, the village purchased a steam fire engine from the Clapp & Jones Manufacturing Company. However, the city of Chicago confiscated the fire engine, which coincidentally was awaiting shipping to Pentwater at the Chicago docks. It was needed to fight the Great Chicago fire, which destroyed over 17,000 city buildings.
A Clapp & Jones steam pumper finally arrived, and the village now owned the best fire engine of that era. The Pentwater Fire Department named it the Oceana. The manufacturer guaranteed that the engine's boiler, heated by a coal fire, would create enough steam in five minutes to maintain a pressure of 100 pounds per square inch. Two hose carts followed the engine on the fire runs, and the department had a crew of twenty-two volunteers to fight fires. One firefighter earned $30 monthly to oversee the steam engine and kept it in a rented building.
The first test came on May 6, 1872, with the fire at the Eldred Shingle Mill, Michigan's largest shingle mill, located on the south side of Pentwater Lake. The mill employed 80 men and 20 women in two buildings. By the time the crew transported the steam pumper by ferry across the lake and dragged it through deep sand to the fire, it was too late to save the mill. However, the Oceana enabled firefighters to protect other nearby buildings.
Fires followed in 1886 and 1889, when George Warner's Tobacco and Variety Shop on Hancock caught fire, spreading through the one-story, wood-frame buildings. The devastating fire jumped across Hancock and at least seven buildings on North Hancock were lost. Eleven years later, in 1900, a $300,000 fire destroyed the Pentwater Bedstead Company and, in that case, cost hundreds of jobs.
The Pentwater Fire Department retired the Oceana, eventually adding new motorized fire trucks. In 1929, after a fire destroyed the remnants of the Hotel Valeria, they constructed a steel watch tower, called the tallest in the state, on the highest dune west of Pentwater Lake. Watch guard Elihu McDonald could see for twenty miles in all directions with field glasses. McDonald's previous perch was atop a nearby tree, where he once spotted a fire, drove there, and put it out. Today, the department's crew of five officers and eight firefighters, a paramedic, EMTS, and MFRs, handles over 350 calls with a paid-on-call department.
Sources: “Pentwater Fire Tower, “ Grand Rapids Press 8/2/1929. Pentwater Scorched,” Kalamazoo Gazette 10/4/1889. Many more sources to be added here soon.