HISTORY

A search through Dublin's history books and newspapers reveals that the first few fire chiefs made a lasting impression on the town.

Willie Parker Hallmark, known as W.P. or Uncle Buck, was born in Alabama in October of 1873. In a newspaper interview in 1950, which talked about him "going strong" at 77, Mr. Hallmark recalled his days as one of Dublin's
earliest firemen.

"W.P. (Uncle Buck) Hallmark and the old fire horse who jumped at the clang of a bell have a lot in common," the story starts, "only Uncle Buck helped train the horse, helped put him to pasture, and is still around fighting fires."

In the same article Uncle Buck was described as (arguably) Texas' oldest fireman, who had worked with the Dublin fire department for 57 years - 53 of those as acting fire chief. At 77, Uncle Buck was still answering all fire calls. "We've got about 3,000 people in Dublin and about 30 volunteer firemen now," he said that year. He also spoke of leaving Alabama at the age of 18 looking for the "wild west" and, accompanied by a bride of three weeks, ending up in Dublin.

"The first thing I ran into was no fire department," he said. "I just sort of fell naturally to helping organize one...and so here I am."

According to Incidents in the History of Dublin by Sarah Catherine Lattimore, the first attempt at orga~ghting occurred in l882 when a hook and ladder company was formed. The first captain was H.A. Smith, "with Mr. Oldham, Mr. Bishop and Mr. Townsend, first, second and third assistants," Mrs. Lattimore wrote.

In the 1950 interview, Mr. Hallmark talked about helping his father fight fires as a young boy in rural Alabama. "I grew up knowing more about fires than anything else," he said. He was later made an honorary life fire chief by the Dublin fire department.

"Somebody's always asking me when I'm going to give up going to fires," he said. "I tell them that the day they haul me out to the cemetery will be soon enough. Never did like ambulances or hearses. I'd much rather ride on a fire truck."

According to Ed Leatherwood, another Dublin resident who devoted a good deal of his life to the fire department, Uncle Buck got his wish. When he died in
1967, he was transported to Dublin's (New) Live Oak Cemetery in a 1929 model fire truck.

"The Dublin VFD had purchased that truck new," Mr. Leatherwood said. "I own it now. The family drives it in parades and such. It's in pretty good shape after all these years. We've done a lot of work on it though. We've completely redone it a couple of times."

Mr. Leatherwood was still a youngster when he worked with Uncle Buck, but the memory hasn't dimmed.

"I'm not sure if he was really deaf, or just didn't want to listen, but you could be talking to him and he'd reach over and turn his hearing aid down -- not up, but down. And the discussion was over," Mr. Leatherwood said. "That used to make me so mad. I guess he'd done things a certain way for so long and didn't want to hear anything new. I was just a teenager and maybe shouldn't even have been there but I sure hated it when he wouldn't listen to me."

Mr. Leatherwood also remembers Dublin's next fire chief, Newell "Punch" Alexander.

"Mr. Alexander was one of the nicest men I've ever met," he said. "He was a good man and a good fireman."

Ed Leatherwood would eventually become chief himself. "I'm not sure exactly how long I was chief, but I was in the fire department more than 40 years," he said. His sons, Jimmy, Pat and Eddie were also firemen, as was his father, C.E. Leatherwood.

One of the first fires that Uncle Buck Hallmark would have fought was in December of 1893 when the old Texas Siftings saloon burned. The newspaper gave this account: "This morning at 1 o'clock, fire was discovered in the saloon on the corner of Grafton and the Texas Central Railroad streets. It was not discovered until the building was almost entirely enveloped in flames, but the fire companies were shortly on hand and soon had the building, a single-story frame, 25 by 115 feet, under control, the fire having burned only one end and the roof out of the building. At 2:30 o'clock, or about the time the boys had gotten themselves in position for a snooze, another alarm was turned in. This time fire was issuing from the roof and out of the upper windows of the two-story stone building on the corner of Grafton and Elm streets, formerly occupied by another saloon. The flames here were about under subjection, when fire broke out again in the building first mentioned, but the generous efforts of the Dublin fire boys soon had both the fires extinguished, and left for their homes. At five o'clock the alarm was turned on for the third time, the fire having caught again in the stone building, but was soon easily mastered. The origin of the fire was undoubtedly incendiary, but no clue is known as to the identity of the scoundrel or scoundrels."

Although those "fire boys" were probably as eager to help their neighbors as their modern day conterparts, their equipment was certanily not up to today’s standards.

The Dublin Historical Museum has a number of early day fire fighting tools on display (on loan from the fire department) including a “pike pole” (a device which was used to pull down walls or ceilings or to forcibly enter a house) and horseshoes with rubber pads.

"The horse-drawn equipment era lasted 20 years in the fire service," said Mary Yantis museum curator. "In the late 1880s, as firemen were putting larger and better equipment ir service, they found that their horses could not get traction or anything slick. As a result, an inventor was able to attach to the regular horseshoe a rubber pad that allowed the horse to get a sure footing. Brick streets, common at the time, were especially hard for horses pulling the heavy equipment."

In 1943 one of the worst fires in the history of Dublin destroyed several old buildings on Patrick Street across from Dublin National Bank.

News articles from the time stated that firefighters from four towns - Dublin, De Leon, Hico and Stephenville -- battled the blaze, which first destroyed the Wilson Produce House and the Sitton Grocery.

"An extremely high wind was blowing from the southeast, which caused the building known as the Utterback building on Patrick Street to catch on fire," The Dublin Progress statcd. "The building that houses Johnson Motor Lines caught on fire, on top, but was put out. The bakery building also caught from one end to the other, but the fire boys put this out also. A part of the Fine Grocery, in the Utterback building, was destroyed as were some 175 tons of peanuts that were stored in the other side of the same building. M. Hoffman's Department Store was also practically destroyed. The front plate glass of Novit's Department Store, Foust Lumber Yard, Baxter's Place and Bibby's Variety Store were cracked from the intense heat ..It seemed as if the entire town would be destroyed. The wind was so high that great pieces of wood, ablaze, floated over the business section and on into the residential section, falling like hail. The streets on the windward side looked like rivers of fire from the many live coals and sparks that were being blown down them."

In 1952 the Red Front Texaco building burned. It was located on Elm Street across from the bank, where Taylor's (One-Stop) is now.

In January of 1977, the buildings on the northeast corner of Blackjack and Patrick (where the park on the corner lot is now) burned and several businesses were destroyed, including Black's Cafe. Everett Hightower was the fire chief at that time.

As Reported in The Dublin Citizen
Thursday, August 1, 2002
By Laura Kestner, Features Editor