Friday, July 17, 2009

West End Company Plans Its Firehouse

The following article is reprinted in its entirety from the Tuesday July 17, 1956 edition of The New Chronicle.

West End Company Plans Its Firehouse

Firemen Will Donate Labor For Construction

Shippensburg West End Fire and Rescue company members plan to do most of their own construction work in building a firehouse near the corner of Reading Rd. and Westover Avenue, according to what members told the Shippensburg borough council recently.

They will have the labor donations of some professional bricklayers however. Plans call for a 36 by 24 foot one story building, which will be largely built of cement block.

It is hoped the structure will be up by next fall. The borough council has indicated approval for use of the lot by the firemen. Formal approval is expected once the borough has the deed to the land in hand. It accepted an offer of the lot recently.

The building will house a 24 by 24 foot engine room and a meeting chamber. It will have an eight-inch concrete floor. There will be no basement.

Firemen plan to build in the center of the lot so that expansion will be possible in any direction later. A company siren has been on this lot for about six months.

The company which started from scratch nine months ago now has some 50 members and a radio equipped rescue truck.

The building was never built.

10 comments:

Brad Myers said...

Has this blog outlived its usefulness? Views have been down and after coming home from vacation I found that it dropped another 10%. In 24 of the last 25 posts I only had 8 comments and two of those were mine. Does this mean I am taking time out of my busy schedule for nothing? Maybe I should take a few months off or shut it down. This site always surprised me; the majority of my hits do not come from Shippensburg. I have tried in the past to increase traffic here, it was published in the Shippensburg Historical Society new letter, traffic increased for three days, that tells me they are not interested in the SFD and makes it easy to turn them down every time they ask me to come speak. Decision time.

Brad

Brad Myers said...

Actually the site dropped just over 21% not the 10% I stated earlier.

Anonymous said...

Brad,
For what it's worth, I've always enjoyed the site. Just don't always have anything to reply with. I can tell you that I pretty much daily see guys around the hose hall checking out the site. Can't offer much more than that, just keep up the good work.

TJ

Anonymous said...

Brad,
Even though I do not comment much, I to enjoy the site, Even after moving from the area it helps bring back memories
Former P.H.F.D. 11

Anonymous said...

Brad I check the site daily and enjoy the history lessons us young guys need. Cressler

Anonymous said...

Brad,
It would be a shame to shut it down. I too visit daily and like TJ said, do not post a reply. However, I rarely miss a day.

CT

E4 Lt said...

maybe I should post from home instead of from work...to give u more local hits.
Andy

Anonymous said...

Brad,

Like most of the other replys, I try to check your site daily and as TJ commented, not always have a comment to post. I do enjoy the history you post here and try to keep going with your posting brother.

Grizz

Brad Myers said...

Shutting this site down is not really about the lack of comments it is about the decline in viewers. As I said it is down 21% and it declined more this week. It takes to much time to keep it running to do for a small audience. If it does not go up, it will end or become a hit or miss if I post an incident.

Sparky said...

Like everyone one else said I too enjoy your Ship history. I will spread the word for people to start looking and understand the history of the Ship Fire Service.