Missouri Dept. Gets Historic Hose Cart Donation

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Oct. 20--WARRENSBURG -- An early piece of city history, a red hose cart, spent more time hidden in barns and livery stables than on the job.

Fire Department Chief Administrator Guy Parsons said then-City Councilwoman Janet Mills donated the cart to the city around November 1995, when Fire Station 2 opened at 1550 Corporate Drive. The cart is in Station 2's lobby.

The cart spent years under a tarp in a barn, handed down through the family of an early Warrensburg firefighter. Mills bought the cart at an auction, and gave the cart to the city, Parsons said. Firefighters cleaned and painted the two-person cart for display.

"The hose cart came before the 'Tony and Mack' period," Parsons said. "Tony and Mack were horses, Percherons."

The team pulled early 20th century fire equipment. Parsons produced photos dated 1910 and 1913 showing the team hitched to a hook-and-ladder wagon.

Parsons also produced information on the hose cart. His information said the city bought the cart in 1892.

Firefighters used a hand-operated pumper to force water through the hose on the cart. Cisterns in West Pine St. served as water sources, he said. Those

Were the Days occupies a building that served as an early fire station.

An October 1893 information map states Warrensburg's volunteer fire company dissolved and the hose reel cart, with 300 feet of two-inch diameter hose, went into storage at Schrefer's Livery, 116 E. Pine St. Also listed in storage is a "hand engine," the hand pump Parsons said forced water through the hose onto the fire. Another period map shows three wells in the 100 block of West Pine Street, but no public water works for the town of 4,800.

Another map shows that by 1907, the department had two paid firefighters and 10 volunteers. A two-horse team pulled a hose wagon. Instead of an alarm bell, firefighters received alerts by telephone and from a steam-driven whistle at the electric light works at West Pine and South Warren streets.

With Warrensburg expanding during her six years on the council in the 1990s, Mills said the second fire station stood as one of her proudest accomplishments.

"We needed it," she said. "We had such a fantastic Fire Department."