WPBFD History

American La France pumper with rat-tail hose wrapped around front. Circa 1925.

early indicator that the South Florida boom was ready to go bust. Sadler's report to the city manager was even six weeks late. Thursday, October 13, 1927, a street cave-in at 3rd Street and Olive Avenue brought firemen to the rescue. Two gas company employees had been trapped and as- phyxiated. Both men were revived after twenty minutes using the H-H Inhalator. Chief Sadler and Assistant Chief Larrabee were on the scene supervising operations. The fire department answered calls to numerous re- mote areas of the county in the early years. In late 1927 responses were made to Belle Glade and the Jupiter Lighthouse for fires. There were no mutual aid agree- ments or offers to pay for this service. Chief Sadler, with one of the few paid fire departments in the county, felt it was his responsibility to provide service if possible to areas where no service was available. Chief Sadler virtually lived for the fire department. Other than his hobbies of fishing and hunting, there was not much else of interest to him. A bit of information about his personal life shows how dedicated he was to the department. Sometime in the 1920s Sadler found his income suf- ficient to build a new home. Wanting to be close to the action, he selected a lot in the 200 block of 8th Street. The house had one unusual feature that remains there to- day. The second floor master bedroom had an outside stairway leading down to the garage so Sadler could rush to his car when the alarm sounded. He probably would rather have had a pole to slide, but his wife would surely have had none of that. In the late 1980s, the house was purchased by an inquisitive man who wanted to know about the unique stairs. After learning that the house had been owned by a former fire chief in West Palm Beach, he came to Central Station to find out more about the man. The visitor was shown the many pictures of Chief Sadler on the walls of Central Station and given a copy of The Fire History of the City of West Palm Beach . Firefighters are not the

and a building eighty (80) feet in depth, also, sufficient ground should be at the rear of this building to allow for the erection of Drill Tower, Training Ground, Drying Rack for hose and workshop for making repairs to apparatus. 2. Steps should also be taken to secure neces- sary funds for the installation of a modern fire alarm system throughout the city. At the pre- sent time we are depending on the telephones entirely for the transmission of fire alarms and which has, in several instances, proved to be very slow and inadequate. This is brought about due to the fact that a great many tele- phones throughout the city have been discontin- ued and in some districts are very scarce. Sev- eral times during the past year it has been neces- sary for the police and other persons discover- ing fire, to travel eight or ten blocks in order to get to a telephone to turn in an alarm. Sadler expressed some concern that the Fire Depart- ment might not retain the "Second Class plus five cents" rating unless these changes were instituted. He warned of increased insurance rates should the Florida Rating Bu- reau re-visit the city. The fact that times were hard was not overlooked by Sadler, who added the following com- ments at the end of the report: In making the above recommendations, I do so with a full knowledge of the present financial condition of the city, but, as the conditions exist which are outlined in the above recommenda- tions, I feel it is my duty to bring them to your attention. It had not been a good year for Chief Sadler. Fire losses had more than doubled from the previous year and funds were not available to upgrade the department. No one realized it at the time, but the large fire loss was an

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