The April program for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was a lively presentation on the history of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department by its current Fire Chief, Ray Costain. Chief Costain was as comfortable speaking before a public audience as he is directing firefighting activities at a major conflagration.
Bridgeville has a history of fires fromits earliest days — the Shaffer fulling mill in 1876, A. J. Schulte’s coal tipple in 1890, and C. P. Mayer’s store and lumber yard in 1898. In 1904 Dr. Fife’s home was burned to the ground; neighbors saved the next-door Presbyterian parsonage using garden hoses. Prior to 1916, firefighting in Bridgeville was restricted to bucket brigades and garden hoses; that year a group of residents formed a volunteer fire department and acquired a hose cart which they pulled to fires. Eight years later they purchased their first piece of motorized apparatus, an open cab American LaFrance Pumper. In 1929 they formally were chartered as a non-profit charitable corporation. In those days firefighters were summoned to duty by the ringing of a bell in the bell tower of Washington School. My recollection is that residents could tell what part of the borough the fire was in from the number of times the bell tolled.
In 1933 the association purchased a 1927 Packard Town Sedan and converted it into a squad car. A new squad car was acquired in 1940, equipped with a power plant and a pump. In 1945 they purchased a property on Bower Hill Road for $2,500 and donated it to the Borough as a site for a new Borough Building. Three years later the fire department moved into its new quarters there, sporting a new 750 gallons per minute pumper from the Seagraves Fire Apparatus Corporation. Their first aerial ladder truck, boasting a fifty-five-foot ladder, was added in 1954. The fleet continued to be upgraded as the years passed.
A major event in the history of the Fire Department was their construction of a modern facility on Commercial Street in 1997, which combined a fire station and social hall. Located in the social hall is the Chartiers Room, a valuable asset to the entire community and the home of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society monthly programs. Revenue from rental of the social hall, an annual donation drive, support from the Ladies Auxiliary, weekly Monday Night Bingos, fish fries, raffles, and financial help from Bridgeville Borough have made it possible for the Company to provide outstanding service to the community for well over a century.
The fire station boasts four spacious bays for its present complement of two pumpers, a rescue truck, and an aerial ladder truck, as well as administrative offices, lockers, and a training area. Today the company is composed of twenty-five volunteer firefighters and an administrative support staff. I was surprised to learn that there are many occasions that the station is unmanned; nonetheless their average response time to a fire in Bridgeville is six and a half minutes.
Chief Costain reviewed major fires in the community, all of which occurred in a short period of thirty-one years. On April 26, 1958, we lost our beloved Washington School (aka “the old school”) to a disastrous fire. By then the fire bell had been replaced by a siren in the bell tower. Ironically, the fire rendered the siren inoperative, and firefighters had to be summoned by telephone.
On March 1, 1960, a serious fire broke out in Sablo’s Salon in the buildings at the southwest corner of the intersection of Station Street and Washington Avenue. Before it was brought into control the conflagration had completely destroyed buildings housing all the businesses between Isaly’s and Sarasnick’s.
Equally disastrous was the March 15, 1961, conflagration that brought an end to the illustrious story of the Norwood Hotel. Constructed in 1876 by Joseph Wright to take advantage of the newly opened Chartiers Valley Railroad, it immediately became a very popular summer resort for wealthy Pittsburghers. Fifty years later it was still a quaint reminder of life in the nineteenth century. I was three years old when our family spent several nights there while they looked for a suitable home to rent. Numerous amateur photographers made home movies of this sad fire.
On December 8, 1989, a fire broke out in a basement apartment at 527 Washington Avenue, eventually destroying the Rankin Building, which housed the Galaxy Theater, and the adjacent Piconi Building. In addition to a number of businesses, this fire wiped out many apartments; thirty persons were rendered homeless.
Bridgeville owes a dep debt of gratitude to the volunteers who have faithfully provided this valuable service for eleven decades and who continue to provide state-of-the-art firefighting technology today.
Next month’s program will be a departure from the normal format. As its contribution to the United States Semiquincentennial, the Bridgeville Area Historical Society has produced a script for a dramatic reading of an hour-long play based on a pivotal episode in the Whiskey Rebellion. Entitled “Interrogation”, the play highlights Alexander Hamilton’s attempt to indict Pittsburgh’s most prominent citizen, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, for treason as a leader of the insurrection.
In addition to providing an overview of the Whiskey Rebellion, the play focuses on major divisive issues of that era, many of which are still relevant in today’s world. Brackenridge was a frustrated moderate, desperate to help the rebels resolve their problems, but dead set against illegal measures.
The choice of a dramatic reading format with four readers makes it possible for this play to be presented by non-professionals with a minimum of preparation and expense. The Society plans to make the script available for other non-profit organizations following its premiere presentation on March 26.
The presentation will be free to the public at 7:30 pm, May 26, 2026, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department, 370 Commercial Street, Bridgeville.