Name/Title
Old Fire Station (now Senior Citizen's Center) | 9 Boynton Street, Eastport, Maine | I7-0C4-03 | District #99Entry/Object ID
099Description
This one and a half steep pitched roof building was built about 1880 on Boynton Hill, a block from Eastport’s downtown. The building was first used as a police station. In the spring of 1888, a year and a half after the Great Fire of October 14 1886 destroyed the hook and ladder fire station across the street, the police moved to Leavitt’s wharf on the nearby waterfront. The fire department then took over the old police station building to house its hook and ladder truck. In 1893, a tower was built on the south side of the building for use in drying fire hoses used during fires. A fire alarm, called the jumbo, was installed at the top of the tower that blared out a series of notes corresponding to numbers that told where a fire was located or what emergency might be at hand or if school was cancelled. In the 1970s, a new modern fire station was built on County Road and the old fire station became the Senior Center providing meals and socializing and other activities for older residents of Eastport. The front facade has been much simplified with now just a small window on the second floor and a door and small window on the first floor.
( ) From Eastport Sentinel, May 23, 1888, p.3,c.2: “A new police station is being fitted up in the building on Leavitt’s wharf next below the part occupied by the Eastport Electric Co. Two tiers of cells for prisoners will be built in the rear of the room and the front will be used as a court room and as headquarters for the town watcheen. The building on Boynton hill formerly used for a Police Station is to be used by the fire department for the Hook and Ladder truck. The present location has many advantages over the old one for a Lock-up.”
( ) From Eastport Sentinel, June 14, 1893, p.3,c.5: “Hook and Ladder house No. I, on Boynton Hill, is having a tower built on its South front for use in drying hose after use at fires.”
( ) From Eastport Sentinel, November 13, 1895, p.3,c.1: “The running of the six and a half miles of wire for the new “Gamewell” fire alarm was completed on Thursday last, the striker placed in the tower of the Unitarian church and all that is necessary now to complete the system, is the placing in position of the boxes from which the signals are struck. The system consists of a series of eleven boxes located and numbered as follows:
Frost’s corner (county road,) No. 25.
Corner of Water and Clark Sts., No. 26.
Corner of Water and Wilson Sts., No. 27.
Corner Washington and Accomoda’n, No. 28.
Corner Key and Broadway, No. 32
Memorial Hall, No. 33.
Corner of Water and Sullivan(Sts., No. 34.
Corner of Sea and Water Sts., No. 35.
Corner of Maddle and Water, No. 42.
Customs and Franklin, No. 43.
Salt Works (South End) No. 45.
To each of the boxes there will be several keys distributed at the most accessiable[?typo, “accessible”] points in the immediate neighborhood. Should a fire occur in the district covered by the box No. 28 near the Catholic church, procure a key, and after unlocking the box, a lever will be found within, which should be simply pulled down, and the “machine does the rest;” giving two strokes on the bell, then eight, (28) and be repeated twice at intervals of six seconds, thus locating the box from which the alarm was rung; a simultaneous signal will be given at the electric light station, that the “Jumbo” whistle may be blown. The striker at the church consist of an ingenious arrangement of wheels and cogs connected by a wire to the heavy hammer which will give the blows on the bell, sufficiently loud to be easily heard a long distance beyond the island limits. The electric current is generated by a battery placed in the Hook and Ladder house on Boynton street. As is the custom the system is to be tested every day at noon in order that it may be known to be in the most perfect working condition. It will also be used as a “school alarm” to designate no school, one session etc. The wiring for the system was done by Messrs. E.L. Young and B. Moody of Boston. The boxes and striker will be completed under thm supervision of J.E. Rogers of Boston; Fred Spates of this city assisting.”
